Stress In Cats And Birds

[murni]

When we moved here from the UK 8 years ago we brought our 9 year old Birman cat with us. He would not go out of the house for the first 3 months and his face (normally brown) turned completely white, after about 6 months it reverted to brown.

2 years ago we bought 2 Forpus Blue Parrotlets (brothers we called Bill and Ben)and gave the a very large cage. Sadly last Sept Ben escaped. After he had gone Bill stopped playing with his toys and never made a sound, just sat on 1 perch all day and all the feathers on his head turned white. Could not find another Forpus Blue and all the websites I looked at said it is impossible to put another species with them as they are very aggresive to other birds.

However, we felt so sorry for him we bought a lovebird. For the 1st couple of months they ignored each other but are now the best of friends. Bill is back to his normal self and all his head feathers have reverted to blue.

I can only assume from the above that it was stress that caused the changes.

Has anyone had the same experience with their dog?

[Jebhead]

My dog does n't have any feathers but his face does turn red when he passes wind, i think that's just embaresment tho, not stress??

JH

[sbk]

Yes, to give a reasonable answer. Dogs suffer stress the same, it can manifest itself in all sorts of behavior as well.

My dog was devastated when our other dog died and you could see his personality change from a bubbly lively dog to one that moped around and no longer played even though we had a couple of other dogs that were still alive. His closest friend died and he never really recovered back to his old self after that.

[bina]

yes. all animals suffer stress. there is acute stress like what u described and there is chronic stress like animals that live in small areas, not enough food, weakest of the litter being bullied all the time (our fox terrier rat terrr. mix moved out of our house to my ex inlaws due to harrassment from my other two lhasas. he was a nervous wreck. now he is back to his bouncy breezy self, and only comes for home visits when the others are out and busy)...

dogs suffereing acute stress get diahrea, the shakes, behavioural problems, anorexia, self mutilation activities, aggressive behaviors ...

acute stress can cause death in grazing animals like deers and also rabbits (sudden death syndrome, capture myopathy)

chronic stress, animals die from seemingly unrelated reasons but can be picked up when looking back on behavioral patters like refraining from eating with the herd , birds that pluck themselves..

also psychological activities like paw chewing, scratching, licking, house destruction, ...

just like humans that die of stress related diseases, animals also react the same way. snakes get pneoumonia when stressed over handled, in cages that arent the right size or tmeperature... lizards too. animals that need hiding spaces but are kept in open cages develop stress related actions and diseases. overcrowing causes death among cattle horses, chickens... not jus the bacterias or viruses but the actual conditions contribute to the death. fish suffer in the same way.

nver seen fur turn colour although lizards do lose their colours , chemeleons remain dark when stressed out; stress in all animalss causes chemical/hormonal/endocrinolgical changes that in turn affect fur/skin/feathers/eating habits etc.like early moulting, problems shedding in snakes, shedding not in season in dogs, all sorts of wierd things.

u can google for stress among animals; its one of the main problems in petting zoos, kennels, large zoos, the bane of any animal keeper. stress can cause early labour to animals, or delayed labour (in ibexes), stress is the cause of mother/young cannibalism or lack of bonding in mammals; animals when stressed wont breed, wont perform, wont go in to heat... the list is endless.

since i ran a petting zoo for years, preventing acute and chronic stress to my animals (and my workers) was practically my main concern. when there is little stress, it means that cages/food/health etc are all working well.

hopw this was interesting to you if not entirely on topic

bina