Birds may have lived in the wild for thousands of years overcoming illness, the harshest of conditions, and escaping predators, but these birds are not free from developing issues that cause them to tilt their heads back.
This article looks into why this could be happening.
Table of Contents
Bird tilting head back:
Birds can start to show odd behaviors out of the blue, this may be caused by hormonal changes, stress, age, or even sickness. Here is why your bird may be tilting its head back:
Stargazing:
Stargazing is the likely reason why your bird it’s tilting to head back.
This condition can affect a variety of birds and causes the bird’s neck muscles to stiffen in a position where the bird is looking up as though it is stargazing, this is where the name comes from.
The other name for this condition is polyneuritis and it is caused by a thiamine deficiency in the bird.
If this ailment is not treated then the bird may start to have difficulty moving around the cage, may lose the ability to fly, and the bird may lose the ability to eat or drink on its own which can kill the bird.
Other signs of stargazing:
This condition is usually accompanied by a variety of other symptoms, your bird may show one or more of these symptoms along with tilting its head back.
Other signs of stargazing include:
- Lethargy
- Head shaking
- Tremors
- Convulsions
What to do:
Giving your bird nutritionally rich feed will rectify the stargazing in your bird, these feeds will contain enough thiamine for your bird. Avoid feeding them scraps, this will leave nutritional gaps in the bird’s diet.
You can supplement thiamine into the bird’s diet either through foods, which is the recommended option, or you could give the bird thiamine supplements to treat its condition.
Depending on what type of bird you’re raising, and how old the bird is, the bird will need different amounts of thiamine to keep it healthy.
This is one of the reasons why you need to give your birds feeds that are designed for them. If given feed that has not been designed for them the bird may start to develop nutritional deficiencies like stargazing.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Budgie Behavior In Pairs, How To Train A Cockatiel To Come To You, How To Catch A Budgie In The House, Female Budgies Fighting,