Medication for a Sick Parrot
Medications can enter the body in a number of ways. The easiest and most common method is by actually squirting the antibiotic into the parrot’s mouth using an eyedropper. For obvious reasons a glass eyedropper must be avoided and care should be taken to lx sure that liquid medication goes into the digestive tract anti not the lungs. A clever technique is the use of a wooden dowel with a number of holes drilled into it. The dowel is offered to the sick bird who, being a parrot, will almost always grasp it in his beak. One of the holes is then lined up with the open beak and an eyedropper with a rubber extension placed through the hole. The medic.on can now be administered with ease.
When the injection of antibiotics is called For the injection is generally made into the well developed breast tissues as they offer a suitable target. Many practitioners refer to injecting a bird as a “pop¬ping” him. Injection has the advantage of getting medication into the bloodstream rapidly but requires more skill than the oral approach.
On occasion I have used an antibiotic designed for opthalmic purposes in humans by lightly packing be bird’s nostrils with it. This topical method of application to the nostrils can be used to treat the sinuses. Antibiotics may also be administered through the bird’s drinking water but this method is rather passive and its success will depend on how much water the bird drinks.