Lipid Buildup in the Eyes of Parrots

If you look in JoJo my yellow nape amazon’s pupils, you’ll see white spots for looking things. This is a lipid buildup over his pupil. He has always had this since I’ve known him.

A lipid buildup happens in a overly fat saturated diet. Amazon parrots are extremely vulnerable to diet related illnesses, mostly fatty liver and congenital heart failure, but anything diet related. JoJo was only given sunflower feeds and peanuts in his first home of 24 years. He was in a carrier as a cage, about a foot by a foot and a foot high. For 25 years in that cage with that diet. Since he was deemed vicious, he was never taken out either, so he got no exercise. He also had a lot more concerns but focusing on the eyes and diet.

When I first got him, he could barely see the lipid buildup covered most of his eye. When I converged his diet to a low fat diet, the buildup started to decrease. This can happen naturally with time. But for JoJo, it will never be perfect.

It’s described to me that he can see at this point, but with a lot of dark spots blocking full vision. I can definitely tell when he can see and when he can’t by his reactions. Because he has vision impairment, I am very verbal with him and always pair words with actions for him to learn overtime, or through structured training sessions.

Because he is special needs, I also made it first effort to restraint train, syringe train, and carrier train in preparation of more vet visits or lifelong medications. If you are interested in teaching your bird these things, feel free to contact us to set up an online or in-person behavior consultation!