Most birds we get in are either orphaned babies or injured, but there are some common illnesses we treat as well. They are usually treated with very tiny doeses of drugs like medicam, clavamox, and amoxicillan. Bird diseases spread easily in rehab centers since we have so many birds in the same place and a lot of them aren't feeling great in the first place. We take a lot of precautions (ex. drowning ourselves in hand sanatizer every five seconds and throwing any symptomatic birds into the sick ward dungeon), but there's only so much we can do.
Puffy face is about what it sounds like, severe swelling around the mouth and face. The early signs include heavy panting at rest, and redness around the beak. Once a bird shows symptoms, they immediatly get moved to the sick bird zone to avoid contaminating other birds. They receive heavy antibiotics and medicated water. Fortunatly a lot of them recover, so the biggest hazard is how contageous it is.
Avian pox is also quite common, however it is unfortunatly untreatable. Birds infected with pox have to be euthanized, as otherwise they would grow painful warts all over their body and eventually die. Because of this, it usually doesn't spread around the facility as much as puffy face does, but we still keep an eye out for symptoms.
Conjunctivitus is an eye disease primarily affecting house finches. It is marked by eye swelling, gunk, and markings on the eye itself. We treat it with eyedrops and medicated water. We usually see recovery from this, however house finches tend to be a bit fragile in general, so being sick certainly hurts their chances of making it through.
RSV is a respiratory virus, which expectedly, causes sneezing and coughing. We don't see it often so I don't know much about it, but I mainly bring it up to say that bird sneezes sound really weird. It's more like a hiccup? Sometimes you'll try to feed a bird and it'll have a sneezing fit in the middle of chewing, which is both a little sad and hilarious.