We noticed that our budgie Suki was sneezing and had yellow around his eyes and beak, so we decided to take him to the vet, though I was advised first to send a video of him breathing. The avian vet told us not to transport him because it could cause unnecessary stress to the budgie.

I'm now wondering if this is something avian vets do or if this was wrong. She instead prescribed us some yellow powder which was meant for chickens and pigs. Told us to give him half a dose into his water, so I did.

After a week it wasn't good enough yet, so I gave him the medicine for a total of 10 days. Once that was done, I moved him back from quarantine into the main cage into my room.

However, he relapsed, and would barely move on the perch. I had to gently put him into the quarantine cage where he just sat in the corner. It was on Sunday. I knew the avian vet probably isn't open, but this felt like an emergency.

I felt hopeless and sent her a video of my budgie sitting in the bottom of the cage corner, breathing shallow and seemingly barely alive. 
She saw the video and just said “maybe it's calcium deficiency.” and added a shrugging emoji.

I've never felt so helpless because she was the closest avian vet to us, and I knew this was an emergency but she brushed it off like nothing. It was a horrible feeling like no one cared about my budgie’s life, not even the vet who was supposed to specialize in birds.

Other vet clinics were further away, and later I found out they weren't even open at the times I needed due to being a Sunday. Or they were way too far.

I was able to revive my budgie with water, spray millet, put blankets over the cage and had a heater from a safe distance. (Placed spray millet and water near him on the bottom)

He seemed to get better but for the second week the same thing repeated. I tried calling multiple vet clinics and they were not open, not even emergency ones for birds. Some of them didn't pick up. I was devastated that after finishing the calls my budgie was gone.

It was a bunch of horrible circumstances, and I regret not taking my pet bird to the avian vet no matter what they said. I think if I took him there personally maybe he'd still be here. Maybe he needed longer course treatment and I didn't know.

I have two remaining birds, a budgie and a cockatiel. I need to get them checked at an avian vet now. I wanted to do it at this avian vet I mentioned, but I'm afraid she doesn't actually know anything about birds. 

What do you guys think?


Is this normal avian vet behavior? Did I lose my bird because of bad treatment?