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your right , never change a winning system  it seems youve had a good season and all the very best to you for that  BUTi would look in to it very carefully, and after that   would ask you , do you really think it was this expensive stuff youve gave them that made such a good season, or put it this way if we all used all this expensive stuff would we all have had a good season, i would kinda think again, but congrats on a good season anyway  jimmy

I use cider vinegar it should be noted though that the kind from the health food store is a lot better as it contains live cultures and more useful nutrients although I do use MANY other vitamin and mineral supplements I think every vitamin tonic contains too much of some nutrients and not enough of others thats why I change them around so that they are recieving varying quantities of diffrent nutrients and not overloading on any one thing some nutrients are toxic if consumed in too high a dosage and are much more harmful if overconsumed than being deficent in them

  HI, I'M NEW TO THE FORUM. CAN ANYONE TELL ME IF CIDER VINEGAR (OR ORDINARY MALT VINEGAR FOR THAT MATTER) IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING CROP YEAST INFECTIONS? I ONCE BOUGHT SOMETHING FOR ABOVE CONDITION, IT LOOKED AND SMELT LIKE VINEGAR (THOUGH I STOPPED SHORT OF TASTING IT) THE THING IS, IF IT WAS VINEGAR, I WAS DONE , AS IT WORKS OUT APPROX. EIGHTY TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE!

Malt Vinegar is the best thing since sliced bread for Sour Crop, fill a syringe with 1/5th malt voinegar and 4/5ths warm water, bird will recover in 2/3 hours

hyacith is right i had sour crop in one of my birds before young bird racing started used cider vinegar streght down throat it works price £1.49 from h&b store good stuff

Cheers, I had a  swab result  stating a high yeast-candida count. This was a random test on 3 birds. For ease of treatment of the entire team could I put the vinegar in their drinker, and at what water to vinegar ratio?

Quoted from grooter

hyacith is right i had sour crop in one of my birds before young bird racing started used cider vinegar streght down throat it works price £1.49 from h&b store good stuff

£1.49 ya joking,get down to asda.79p.
I use cider vinger 2/3 times a week,apparently it keep respitory at bay and has other benifits.It smells nice anyway..

25p will get you a garlic bulb one clove of which will kick everything into touch, including your vinegar.

agree with posts above ,, cider vinegar is good for sour crop and acts quickly,   but the old garlic takes a bit of beating for many reasons, if given regularly, the good properties of garlic, are allmost end less and far to much for my one finger to print, but seriously , it is so cheap, for what it does its unbeleivable

I,m adding 10ml of cider vinegar to 1.5litres of drinking water for 5 days, hoping that will do the trick.
              I use garlic once a week, 52 weeks of the year. I agree it's a very useful thing with many benefits.

Thanks for come back on this, Grovehomer.  

I am very surprised to learn that you have a problem with yeast AND that you use garlic; garlic should stop anything 'going over the top'. Can you please confirm HOW you give your garlic to your birds, and how much?

BEST REGARDS

I use 4 crushed cloves of garlic  added to 1 litre of boiled water thats allowed to cool for 10 mins before adding the garlic to it. This is left overnight and shared between 3  1.5 litre drinkers which are then topped up with fresh tap water, so that's 4 cloves to 1 gallon of water  i'd say.
                          I was somewhat surprised to hear that there was a yeast problem, the birds look ok, are flying well, there's no food retention or vomitting,  I'm just acting on a random swab result.
                             Do you think I'm right to try the vinegar or will a prolonged garlic treatment do the trick? Any advice will be appreciated thanks Bruno.

Do you peel the garlic? chop it up or what ?

I peel it then crush it, some people slice it, some dont do anything apart from peeling it.  Some  put it straight into freshly boiled water, others into warm water and some add it to the cold drinker water. I'm not much help am I?
                                                                  The beauty of this forum is that you will get enough views to confidently choose one that works for you.
                                                     good luck and watch this space.

i once read somewhere that u should never put ur garlic into hot or boiling water, it should be put into cold watwr, it takes something out of it, i always put cut up bulbs in cold water, and as i have said before use it in the bath water it keeps ur birds kleen and is good for their whattles and cleaning their nostrols, it certainly is good for keeping them, clean it is used by gardeners to spray on crops to get rid of greenfly etc,

Totally agree Fifer i never use boiling water

I think I will try the cold water and garlic over the winter, see if I notice a difference in the birds.

Again thanks for coming back Grovehomer, and thanks to all the others who spotted the problem.  

If you add garlic to hot or boiling water you kill the active agent, alicin.

That explains how the yeast found a way into your birds.  

If you decide to continue using garlic, use only cold water. I'm sure you'll spot a difference in your birds after just one day.  

Bruno, right again, only cold water should be used with garlic as hot water changes its consistency and destroys much of the beneficial chemicals. The other thing is to never leave it for more than a couple or three days even in cold water, as a skin develops round the garlic which stops it imparting any goodness into the water. The best idea is probably to replace it every two days.

I think Fifer's idea on using 'leftovers' for the bath water is an excellent idea and a natural follow-on practice for what you advocate, Doostalker - renew every two days.  

I'd known for a while that garlic had insecticidal properties but until Fifer's post (a while back now    ) had no idea on how to use it this way for the pigeons. Dunking what's left from my garlic preparation into the bathwater seems to be working a lot better than any of the advertised bath salts that I'd tried out.