Time for a HOF Sticky on Pigeon Health, I NEED HELP

[AHGSP]

I think we need a Hall of Fame Sticky for Pigeon Health.

Here's my issue: I have just about lost my entire loft of Pigeons over the past 4 weeks to an illness I can not identify and have had no luck with in much searching of the net.
Symptoms: The birds start fluffing up and becoming inactive, losing weight in their breast, becoming un-coordinated walking and unable to fly and eventually dieing. They DO NOT have neck twist or head twist as I have found in many video's and descriptions of PMV-1. Recently, I have also noticed loose and greenish $^#T

For the past 2/3 weeks after losing the first couple birds unexplainably, I have been treating with Medpet 4 n 1, treated the insides of their legs with SCAT 2 days ago for any possibility of Scaly Face/Air Sac mites and worms and sprayed each bird yesterday with Avian Insect Liquidator. I'm still seeing sick birds.

Having just built a new 8x8x7high loft w/ a 8x8x6high aviary I would like to populate, I'm very hesitant to get any new birds into the new loft until I have figured out what my issue is in my old loft. Any ideas or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. While these birds are a training tool, I also very much enjoy fooling around with them and watching them route around the house here when not working with them of an eve, so am quite frustrated with the continual losses despite my best efforts.

[Fieldmaster]

Bruce,
Sounds to me like you have a bad case of Paratyphoid. Can be pretty hard to get rid of in your loft when you get it. Have you been hatching and raising young birds or have they been dieing on you in the nests? Have to pull all of them out of the loft and get them medicatied and scrap, clean bleech your loft and nesting boxes really thoroughly in every corner, crack and crevasse you can see.

Robert

[Brittguy]

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/index.php

[BoJack]

Bruce,
Paratyphoid/Salmonella.Will post some links.Make sure mice isn't getting into your loft or feed.

[BoJack]

There are four different forms of the disease:

Intestinal Form: This form causes diarrhea with slimy/aqueous brownish to greenish droppings, the droppings will be surrounded by fluid and may contain pulpy undigested feed. The intestines are inflamed, feed cannot be broken down for its nutrients. Since the pigeon can no longer absorb the nutrients its starts using its blood sugar, when that is depleted, it uses its fat reserves and then finally its protein i.e. muscle tissue. Soon the pigeon is emaciated (starving) and the dies.

Articular Form: Salmonellae can quickly multiply in the digested feed. Through damaged intestinal walls they pass easily into the blood stream. From there the blood will carry the disease throughout the whole body. The pathogens may settle in the pigeons joints where they cause painful inflammation. The pigeons body reacts by the increased formation of fluid to these joints, therefore the swelling. The inflammation manifests itself by the pigeon letting a wing droop or holding its leg up to ease the pressure put upon the joints and alleviate the pain.

Organ Involvement: The disease can also multiply in the different organs of the pigeon especially the liver, kidneys, spleen, heart and pancreas. Tumor like yellowish gray nodes are formed. The changes in the organs are not characterized by any typical external symptoms except listlessness, difficulty in breathing and rapidly progressing debility.

Nervous Disorder: Salmonellae can enter the brain and the bone marrow and cause inflammation there. As a result of the inflammation there is increased pressure exerted on the nerve cells causing an impaired sense of balance and finally paralysis.

[BoJack]

http://www.pigeonmania.com/salmonella-p ... n-pigeons/

Get some Sulmet from Foy's Pigeon Supplies:
http://www.foyspigeonsupplies.com/index.html

[AHGSP]

Robert and Joe, 1st, THANK YOU very much for the input. I think this is EXACTLY what is going on and appears to be in all of the various types/forms you posted Joe. I'm guessing mice may have gotten into my feed storage possibly, as I've intro'ed no new birds and don't know of any other likely/possible sources. I've had luck with hatching up until 4 weeks ago, then I began losing my new Squeakers/YB's 1st and it has progressed from there, though I still have 2 Squeakers/YB's in the loft that are just beginning to act sick. I'm sure I stressed them, as I moved them to the new loft and when they began getting sick, moved them back to the old loft; so I wonder if I didn't already have carriers that were not displaying until I stressed them.

I'll buy the Sulfamet, but would it be reasonable to go ahead and start them on the 1500-3000 mG's of Amoxicillin per gallon of water, to get immediate treatment for it started, since Foy's always seems to be VERY slow getting anything I order from them out the door? I found online at Foy's and elsewhere, that Amoxicillin is often prescribed for treatment and I have plenty of that here for immediate treatment. I also found the dosage from a quick search of some Pigeon sites.

Dayummmm this has been frustrating.

[BoJack]

Yes I'd start the Amoxicillian.

[Vision]

What you have is Adeno virus, or as the racing pigeon people call it "young bird disease" There is no treatment for Adeno, but what is killing the pigeons is the secondary bacterial infections E-coli and intestinal canker.

I would put your birds on Amprolium (Jeffers.com) Parastop (Global Pigeon Supply) and a non ridzol canker product like Flagyl (Global Pigeon Supply)

[Hattrick]

good post !! i have exact same problem i lost # 9 tonight sucks!!!

[Vision]

Here is a link to the Parastop on Global Pigeon Supplies website. http://www.globalpigeon.com/product_inf ... cts_id=575
This is what I would use for Canker, Cocci- Geel also from Global http://www.globalpigeon.com/product_inf ... cts_id=129

From Jeffers a link for the Amprolium http://www.jefferslivestock.com/product ... V&pn=A2-CD
Instead of using some worthless sulfa drug use this one as a general antibiotic http://www.jefferslivestock.com/product ... V&pn=A2-N2

Once you get your birds healthy keep them on a simple program of 2 days a month with Amprolium, and 2 days a month on a canker product like Cocci-Geel.

Parastop is an awesome medication that works very well. I would run them on Parastop for 14+ days regardless of the dosage time on the bottle. Adeno is a nasty virus that will cause you trouble for a few years. Once your birds develop an immunity to it you should have no more problems from it.

If you keep the e-coli, cocci, worms, and canker in check in your pigeons you should have not other health issues with them. Paratyphoid gets the blame for most pigeons health issues. It can be a problem, but more often than not other diseases are causing the problems and the symptoms are all pretty much the same.

[Wildweeds]

Call me the heel if you'd like but if your planning on loading the new coop with new birds from another loft or source .................................I'd wring the necks on the sick ones and BURN the old loft to the ground,then I'd bleach,nolvasan,or onestrokeenviroin everything I had that had to do with the old birds,including spraying the ground path that was taken to care for them.I'm a novice when it comes to racing pigeons but I've raised a ton of birds for training,quail chukars and pheasants and can say from experiance...............when it goes bad it can get gnarly,had the ulcerative enteritis in the quail and by god it was devestating,got it from mixing birds from another source,went from 300 to 25 in the blink of an eye,I shot the remaining 25 over the dogs, burned the dirt,bleached it twice,tilled it 3 times and boom problem gone. The sting of the lesson from 25 free birds was a lesson I will never forget.

[AHGSP]

Vision,
Anything in particular make you suspect Adeno over Paratyphoid? Could you post the symptoms? I ask, because what was posted earlier definitely fits the symptoms I'm having. As an aside and on a positive note, I started the Amox IMMEDIATELY and am already seeing improvement in 2 of the birds that were just beginning to show listlessness, 1 of which is a Squeaker/YB and the other of which is about an 8 to maybe 10 year old hen. The other Squeaker/YB was further along in the symptoms, staggering, falling down and such; but being cautiously optimistic, has not gotten worse and though still having coordination issues, also seems to be slightly improved with forced fluids/meds and food/mash. "He" is getting more resistive to my forcing him to drink and eat, just generally fighting me more on taking the syringe.

Fingers crossed for now.

Wildweeds,
I gotta laugh, but I know what you mean about completely disinfecting. Many years ago, I had a fella bring a young pup over that several weeks later, developed Parvo. We knew it wasn't from here, but not knowing if the pup was carrying the Parvo before coming here, I hosed down my entire 1 1/2 acre fenced in yard area where the pup had been with HTH mixed through a Wysiwash into a lawn sprinkler. Can you imagine the looks the neighbors were giving me running the sprinkler on the entire area until I had small lakes developing in the middle of April when we were already getting record rainfalls?

[Vision]

AHGSP

I have raised pigeons for 38 years until December. For the last 12 years I had my birds tested prior to breeding season and in all those years I never had a positive culture for Salmonella. I'm not saying I did not have cases of Salmonella but the tests never showed it. Salmonella rarely kills birds in mass quantities in a short amount of time. It lingers for months and you lose a bird here and there. Most of the time with Salmonella you end up with birds that have wing boils, or leg paralysis, occasionally a head twister. You also see a lot of the eggs being fertile but the babies not hatching, or dying right after hatching. Homers especially will be sick with Salmonella but never show symptoms themselves but the babies won't hatch, the young birds that do hatch are listless and die at a week old. Homers are very strong pigeons usually.

The classic symptoms of a virus in pigeons like PMV or Adeno are massive looses in a short amount of time with dehydration, vomiting, green slimy droppings, and most of the birds in the loft sick at the same time.

I had a run of Adeno for 2 years in the Spring time about 10 years ago. The birds all looked healthy and the young babies that where just days away from leaving the nest would rapidly start to show symptoms of clumsiness, green droppings, and rapid weight loss. They would die in about 48 hours. After 2 years I never had problems like that again.