I noticed yesterday that there was a bit of red tissue under Alex's right eye.

Not quite sure what it is, but I think it might be Conjuctivitus, which is a prolapsed third eyelid.

Alex is still acting normal, though she just doesn't want to be touched. I imagine that it hurts quite a bit. She isn't really rubbing it or anything though from what I've seen.

Showed her to my mom, and she actually agrees that we should take her to a bird vet (for once). So we found a nearby vet, and we'll be taking her tomorrow afternoon.

I'll give you guys updates on what the vet says.

Good luck

Have them do a quick test for psittacosis. I have known birds have conjunctivitis like symptoms that have had it. Best to check for it now for the sake of your whole flock. Let us know how you get on and fingers crossed for you both

Good luck! Another possibility is that she got a bit of debris in the eye (like a bit of millet shell) and couldn't get it out again. That happened with one of my fledglings a couple of years ago.

I'll make sure they run the tests.

Knowing how clumsy Alex is, I wouldn't be surprised if she got something like that stuck in her eye. My mom thinks that Georgie could've caused it somehow too. I kinda doubt it but anything is possible I guess.

I'll let you guys know what the vets say. Hopefully it's nothing too bad (or contagious to other birds), and is an easy fix.

So the vet did a quick examination and an eye-staining, and funnily enough during that eye-stain he ended up pulling some kind of debris our of her eye. He said it was fiber-like, so it could be a piece of a feather or a plant fiber of some kind.

So he prescribed two kinds of medicine. He prescribed eyedrops, and in case if it is an infection, he prescribed an antibiotic that we have to feed Alex via syringe.
He did talk about the possibility of more threatening diseases like psittacosis, but he also said that Alex is overall healthy so the chances of it being that are unlikely.

So the eye medicine is taken for 10 days and the oral medicine for 20 days. Right now Alex is in a smaller cage, mainly because it's easier to grab hold of her. He gave us a pretty clear demonstration on how to apply both medicines, which is good. Overall he seemed like a good vet.

I'll give updates Alex's recovery.

That sounds like a great vet! Good luck with the medication!

Today her eye's starting to look a little better. The conjunctivitis is smaller than it was yesterday.

Although she's starting to rub her eye more, possibly because of the eyedrops. On one hand I'm worried that rubbing it will make it worse, but given she hadn't rubbed it before now I feel that it could also be a sign that it's not hurting as much, and she feels ok to touch it.

The vet said its ok for her to be around the other birds since the infection's likely not contagious. However we are keeping her in the smaller cage because it's easier to catch her that way.

I did take her out however, when I took Lucy and Georgie out for out-of-cage playtime. The first thing she wanted to do was sit on the playstand with Georgie, and for a good while, they sat there and preened each other (though the majority of their cuddling time was also just preening themselves near each other, and asking to be preened).

So while they were together, I just sat on the couch with Lucy on my knee, and Alex eventually flew over to me. And for a few seconds, she let me pet her, which she hasn't been letting me do since before the eye problem started, but I figured that could've just been her being "too old for scritches" since she's starting to act like the bird equivelant of a teenager (you know, it only took until she was well over a year old to get to that stage; longer than it took Lucy to start acting like that).

So it's safe to say that she's starting to feel better. I know she's definitely not a fan of being by herself, so I go into the room her cage is in every few minutes to talk to her which she seems to enjoy. I'd put her cage in the same room with Lucy and Georgie, but we don't really have a place to put it in there.

Although, now without Alex in the cage, Lucy has suddenly taken an interest in Georgie. Though now Georgie's the one who's not interested. I guess he's staying loyal to Alex. You're right Carolyn, it does become a soap opera when you house more than two birds together (especially when some of those birds are cockatiels).

In fact, I just watched her ask Georgie to preen her, then hiss when Georgie didn't pay any attention. But I digress.

Here's hoping Alex continues with a good recovery.

Watch out to make sure that she can still close that eye completely. With my chick, the feathers around the eye got stiff and gunky and prevented her from closing it all the way. This causes irritation from dry eye, and you end up wondering why the eye isn't getting better.

If this happens, you need to wash the feathers do get rid of the gunk. I did it with a wet Q-tip. These feathers are very small and are likely to get pulled out in the process, but they'll grow back pretty quickly and in the meantime the eye can get back to normal.

Alex is off the eyedrops, although the inflammation is still there. She's able to close her eyes and everything, so it's not that the feathers are keeping her eyelids open... She still has a few days until she's off the antibiotic, and that seems to somehow keep it from swelling back up. It's barely noticeable, but the fact that it's still there bothers me. I think it might be getting smaller though, but I can't tell for sure.

I'm thinking about calling the vet about her eye. I'm pretty sure their phone consultations are free at least. I can't remember if he wants to do a followup or not, so it might be good to call and find out.

Behavior-wise she seems fine. She gets into some pretty bad night-frights though, probably because she's alone. Last night I had to go in there to calm her down because she was flapping so hard. Doesn't help that she's in a tiny cage too... Both her wings were bleeding by the time I calmed her down.

Lucy's been pretty needy without Alex there too, funny enough. She screams more when I leave the room, and she craves attention more. I guess she's missing part of her flock.
Georgie on the other hand seems to have caved in from Lucy's "charms", and now he preens her as well as sing to her. He's still just as clueless about mating as he is with Alex though, and has also included Lucy's specific "naughty sounds" in his repertoire. I wonder if he'll take Alex back once she moves back in with them? It'll be interesting to see how they do.
But even with Georgie being Lucy's new boyfriend, she still seems to prefer being with me over him. So chances are things will go back to normal after a while.