HEALTH

Hello Dr Rob. My female Gouldian is ill. About 10 days ago I suddenly found her on the bottom of the cage where she appeared to be gasping and in great distress. ? why. She had just laid an egg the day before. Moreover she had laid 3 eggs several weeks back which she did not incubate. I was afraid she was egg bound and rushed her to the vet. He was unable to palpate a retained egg in the cloaca but took an x-ray of her abdomen. I will attempt to describe what it showed: the picture was remarkably bland. By that I mean, there were no eggs forming nor were there visible loops of bowel or abdominal air sacs. The only thing that showed up were her bones. I thought that was odd. Shouldn't there always be loops of bowel visible? The vet said she may have peritonitis from a ruptured egg yolk and gave her an injection of antibiotic. I was given Baytril to administer by mouth 2x day for a week. He also gave me a nutritional supplement to mix with water and give her by dropper several times a day. She's much better than she was when I first found her. I thought she might perk up if she were returned to the aviary, but her mate chased her all around (which he NEVER did before). When I looked at her next to him I realized how thin and listless she'd become. I removed her from the aviary and returned her to the hospital cage. Nonetheless, she doesn't seem to be eating as lustily as she should, and she still looks peaky. Any ideas what could be wrong and how I can help her? As far as their diet is concerned I feed my mixed finch flock finch formula seed, millet sprays, soaked seeds, fresh greens, egg food, and meal worms. I supplement them wih Calciboost regularly and add Prime to the eggfood. Is this diet okay? They live in my warm greenhouse which is kept around 80 Degrees F. There was a certain amount of mildew in there (I just cleaned it thoroughly), a problem which seems difficult to completely eradicate in that warm, moist environment. Could that be contributing to my sick bird's problem? All the other birds are robust. Thank you for taking the time to answer there questions.