Parasitosis in cockatiel: Parasites in birds The blood-sucking mite or bird mite
The red louse that most commonly appears in aviary birds is the red bird mite or blood-sucking mite called Dermanyssus gallina. It is a small beast, barely visible to the naked eye, which looks like a spider.

Giardosis of the cockatiel

Giardia is a protozoan of mammals, birds, and amphibians infesting the intestines by protecting themselves with cystic envelopes. Giardia psittaci and Giardia ardeae are specific to birds. The cyst then passes into the stool which represents the first place of contamination. Giardiasis is a zoonosis, which means that it is transmissible from bird to bird, but also to other animal species such as humans.

One of the fundamental points of the preventive fight against giardiasis is the hygiene of drinking troughs and water points of birds. Indeed, by contaminating water and food with their droppings, birds easily spread protozoa. Cysts containing protozoan can withstand two weeks in the external environment. High temperatures, overcrowding of aviaries, or even the age of animals are factors that promote pathology.

Symptoms include significant stress or depressive behavior, itching leading to pecking, pruritus on the top of the legs and flanks, diarrhea (soft or smelly liquid feces dirty the tail feathers and legs of the animal), and strong weight loss accompanied by depression. The mortality rate is high following a significant risk of liver complications in cockatiels. No drug was fully effective.

Note that half of California’s population of cockatiels and wavy parakeets is infested with Giardia sp.

Scabies in cockatiel

Scabies is a common parasitosis of birds. It is a mite whose female digs into the skin of its host to lay its eggs. Scabies can therefore reach the entire body of the animal in the thickness of the epidermis, under the scales, or in the follicles of the feathers. But it is noticeable in particular at the level of the head, beak, and legs. Scabies, feeding on the keratin of the scales, is a source of itching for the bird that scratches abnormally.

Pruritus forms around its beak and on its legs, kinds of scaly proliferations that thicken and take on a yellowish color and more or less pile up. At an advanced stage, scabies can attack the germ matrix of the beak and cause deformations of the maxillae, cracks, or significant elongation.

It is important to quickly treat all birds in case of diagnosis of scabies with a suitable anti-parasitic. The weakest birds can lose phalanges or even fingers in case of untreated infection in time. Contamination can take place from bird to bird but also through the accessories of the cage.

The duration of the development cycle is 2 weeks. The bird can be a healthy carrier of effect and trigger it during stress. Other birds may remain unharmed in a contaminated group, and the theory of a deficiency of the immune system is considered.

Mites may be responsible for other different effects of scabies in cockatiels. They are sometimes called “pseudo-scabies”. Thus, Megninia cubitalis causes alopecia spots on the body of the animal with pruritus. Other mites cause oval or round and flat nodules sometimes resembling grains of rice on the body of the bird.

The “red louse” is also a mite: Dermanyssus gallinae. It is bloodsucking and therefore feeds on the blood of its hosts, hence their particular color, and causes lesions, pruritus, and in the worst case anemia. The cockatiel is particularly contaminated by wild birds such as pigeons, so birds living in outdoor aviaries are more affected. They can be visible to the naked eye or by stroking the animal to “turn back” over a white cloth.

Calopistte coccidiose

It is a parasite of the digestive tract that attacks the most vulnerable animals (the young, the old, the sick). The cockatiel withers loses weight strongly, or cannot gain weight, and is affected by diarrhea that can be bloody.

Candidiasis of the cockatiel