Hello Everyone,
Orion, our quaker, turned 1 in June. He loves his pin feathers done, but other then that he has never been a cuddly kind-a-guy, but very playful and vocal. His favorite activity is to charge visitors and bite them, including my hubby. Saturday I noticed his nostrils were damp but his personality and eating were normal. Yesterday he spent a lot of time in his cozy hut sleeping, he was eating normally, normal nostrils, but his vocals were very little. (He whistles a verse of jingle Bells!) Today, he is the total opposite of himself!! And I mean opposite...he slept on my chest for a long time this afternoon and would have stayed if I had not of had to get up. He has NEVER SNUGGLED!!! He's not charging visitors, in fact he climbed onto my neighbor and older son!! totally not Orion! He ate his dinner, but not as fast as usual. And I listened and tried coaxing him, but no whistling and very soft, chirping! This bird drowns the neighbors stereo on most days!! And he let my hubby hold him and only mouthed the biting action! I've put an xtra blanket over him tonight. Any ideas????

I was reading some of the other threads...what is with using distilled water for them to drink? I have never heard of that. Laura

I hope Orion is going to be okay. As I am new to the qp world, I can't advise.
Orion is a great name btw. I will think good thoughts for you.

It definitely sounds like Orion needs to see a vet as soon as possible... wet nares, a change in personality and lots of sleeping doesn't sound normal. Until you can get to the vet put a light near his cage (take the lamp shade off a regular lamp), if he needs the warmth he'll move closer and if he doesn't, he'll move father away...

Good luck and please keep us posted!

I would take him to an avian vet in the morning if you can get him in. He might have a respiratory infection. Sometimes they get things in their nose or have some allergy issues that cause sneezing but he sounds like he doesn't feel well at all so I'd get him in. Please keep us updated.


As far as the distilled water goes, there are no nutrients in it at all. they have been steamed out so although the water would be very clean you would have to physically add those nutrients back in the water when you serve it. There used to be a product called "Living water" that did just that, but the company went out of business. Not sure where else you could get something like that.

Get to the ASAP by the time you notice your bird is ill he has probably been sick for a while and its very urgent to get treatment asap...
Good luck poor little guy...

Please get him to the vet ASAP, as these were the very symptoms that Simon had. Not the wet nares, but the sleeping and being quiet, and that was really his only symtoms. I took him the morning of the second day that I noticed them, and we had to leave him there because the vet said he was seriously ill. That was last Friday, and he just came back home last night. Please please please get him to the vet. As others have said, by the time your bird starts showing signs of illness, it can be too late. I'm not trying to scare you, but birds naturally do not show their illness like a dog or a cat would because in the wild, this can mean them getting left behind by the flock, or even in drastic instances, killed by their own flock because preditors will "go for" ill birds. My vet said if I had waited just one more day, Simon might not have made it. He first was fairly sure that it was metal poisoning, but the tests that came back yesterday were negative for metals, so he assumes that it is just an infection of some sort, and since Simon has improved dramatically on the antibiotics and other meds, he didn't want to subject him (or my wallet) to any further tests.

Please get little Orion to the vet and let us know what they say. I'll be thinking about you two!

Oh, I forgot to mention...it might have been my thread where the water was mentioned because when we thought he had heavy metal poisoning, one of the only ways I could figure he was getting it was in the water since we just recently moved to a "new" older home and we don't know about our water quality, but the vet told me that even if it was metal poisoning, he didn't think the water was the culprit simply because it would have taken much longer for that to build up in his system, and we have only been in this house for a month now.

Laura, any word on Orion? Keeping him in my prayers

just checking on Orion. Fingers crossed and sending hugs your way

Just cheaking in on Orion, how is he today?

Get Orion to the vet ASAP! It sounds like he has an upper respiratory infection! Also, I don't know anything about giving them distilled water to drink. Distilled water is stripped of all minerals and isn't even that good for people to drink for long periods of time unless you add the minerals back into the water. I would just give Orion filtered water to drink.

Wondering how Orion is?