holmsidelofts

Any bird can become sick if exposed to disease, no amount of natural form will stop that, but you are right if its sick cure it.

I dont believe in blind treatment, but if a bird is ill or has picked up a parasite it must be treated. thats why its important to get regular droppings tests and get a good avian vet who can give you advice. birds that are carrying disease or parasites like worms, canker, high levels of cocci, respiratory disease will never be able to compete against good birds that are disease free. You shouldnt really have to use antibiotics at all really. unless you pick up respiratory disease, salmonella, ecoli etc and these diseases can to a degree be kept at bay by good management and a good dry loft. Sure you cant get away from it once you mix birds with others thats why a good health program is so important. most things you will treat regularly is cocci and canker and sometimes worm infections. get Dr colin Walkers book called the flying vets pigeon health and management. Its £35 but you will save yourself lots by fully understanding pigeon health. blind treatment shouldnt be required.

What you have to remember the sport has moved on a huge amount back in the 60's 70's three were very little birds on the day from 400 miles, if you dont get one on the day you'd be gutted. the quality of the birds have got better plus the improvement in medical science and the development of better supplements makes it impossible to compare that time to modern day. What you have to remember and i say it all the time supplements wont make poor pigeons any better, they only supplement what is there. take athletes for example you would never compete if you didnt take supplements against another athlete that does. good birds, a well ventilated loft, good management, healthy birds thats what wins races with out any of those supplements are worthless. Supplements are important and have a place in any sport including racing pigeons.

Dont let them wind you up josh. Im not a footie fan myself so cant comment, you boy's i dont know ;D ;D ;D

Avisal never used it red cell - very good, multivi and iron, meant for race horses but good for pigeon, need to be careful not to give to much due to the high iroon content Ronidazol - one of the best treatments for canker, can be used in the racing season with no effects on form gemthepax - one of my favours, i use it all year round orego stim - never used it but a popular product doxycycline - best treatment for respitory disease. sedochol - fantastic in promoting a good moult, very popular product tkk - ? Parastop - have used it, dont rate it, over use will cause issues. Jas

Yeah mate. josh is spot on i've dealt with him as well, really nice guy. Jas.

Hi frank. The solution i use i make myself. All you need is an old saucepan, a big bag of table salt and a couple of pints of water. Put water in saucepan, bring water to the boil, then start adding the table salt stiring it continually untill the salt stops disolving. let it cool, As it cools there will be a salt skin appearing, strain off the water once cold and put in a bottle. will keep for months. be very careful as the boiling water and salt can cause serious burns. Jas.

No josh, no2 is a fibre and nothing more. Jas.

What i normally use is X10 eye piece with a x 10 objective lense, this gives you x100 magnification. these are some of my photos i put up before as reference guides.

Probably to do with the fact that some of them aint licensed for sale over here maybe?

Welcome claire.

Nothing on picture 3. What magnification are you using? little higher magnification would be helpful. as bigda said difficult to tell, but good first attempt. you are in the right field of view as the air bubble you see in picture one is in focus. so well done you are on your way to the wonders of pigeon health and microscope use. Are you using the flotation technique or are your samples from smearing droppings onto the slide, Flotation is by far the best method for looking at worms and cocci. Pm me if you need anything. Jas.

old birds still have it but yes it effects youngster more, again maybe just an immune system issue, youngster are most prone to diseases than older pigeons.

It depends on how you feed them. If birds have corn in front of them all the time then they will choose what they want, If you feed small amounts on a regular basis they tend to eat everything including maize. I used to hopper feed my stockbirds, i had grid floors in there. after 6 months i took the grids up to clean out and probably had 2 - 3 20kg bags of corn on the floor. they will always go with what they like. I stopped hopper feeding, feed more regular and never had an issue.

Formula 1, i have never purchased from them but john is always on giving advice and the word on the street is they are fantastic. Not very often we can say that about studs. so i would check them out if i was starting again. Jas.

Yes me to mate, was only talking to owen earlier about the coming season. you paired up yet? for me thats the start of things to come, cant wait for it all to kick off. good luck to you to matey. Jas.

What you have to remember is there are 100,000's of bacteria that are rod shaped as well as dot shape. as owen as said you Cannot identify what bacteria they are by looking at them. We know this because both me and owen attended a microscope course together with one of the top pigeon vets in the uk. We asked him to put a course together to understand bacteria and how to identify it and it was made clear to us on that course that the only thing you can tell is if the bird has a bacteria count but the only way to identify it was through growing cultures in a lab, something that you cant do at home and something you should never try to do as salmonella in pigeon can kill humans to, not the sort of thing you want to mess with. You are right in the process at looking at bacteria through staining and oil immerse lenses, thats how we did it with the vet but the only benefit is to tell you if you have a high count and nothing else. Owen and i are not trying to put you down but we have done it first hand with the experts so what we are telling you is fact not something we have read in a book or seen online. Good luck with the season ahead. jas.

Hi paul. Are 9 and 10 related if not i will start the bids on both at £20 each. jas

Also belgicadeweerd will say that as they dont want a drop in sales of there product, you even said yourselves about people making money from vaccines, deweerd make a fortune out of parastop, which in fact is doing more damage to the sport than a proper vaccination program. people are using it regularly, you have to ask yourself why is that its because salmonella is a real risk but they are using antibiotics which thats what parastop is and is causing all these issues that we see out there with birds with poor immune systems and diseases that are resistant to the drugs we have. in guarantee you within the next 5 years salmonella will be rife and you may even see compulsory vaccinations. It will take over from PMV as the disease you dont want to catch. Believe you me i caught PMV back in the 80's when it first came out, and its devastating, others have come on here and said the same when they have had salmonella. Its up to the individual and as i said before the experts are the people who deal with it day in day out thay are the pigeon vets of the world. You have to make up your own mind. Plus you said about the info i supplied is not fact. go to the following address where you will find answers to most pigeon health problems written by the expert vets around the world, there plenty on there abou salmonella. http://www.pipa.be/en/newsandarticles/ask_the_vet jas

Also belgicadeweerd will say that as they dont want a drop in sales of there product, you even said yourselves about people making money from vaccines, deweerd make a fortune out of parastop, which in fact is doing more damage to the sport than a proper vaccination program. people are using it regularly, you have to ask yourself why is that its because salmonella is a real risk but they are using antibiotics which thats what parastop is and is causing all these issues that we see out there with birds with poor immune systems and diseases that are resistant to the drugs we have. i guarantee you within the next 5 years salmonella will be rife and you may even see compulsory vaccinations. It will take over from PMV as the disease you dont want to catch. Believe you me i caught PMV back in the 80's when it first came out, and its devastating, others have come on here and said the same when they have had salmonella. Its up to the individual and as i said before the experts are the people who deal with it day in day out thay are the pigeon vets of the world. You have to make up your own mind. Plus you said about the info i supplied is not fact. go to the following address where you will find answers to most pigeon health problems written by the expert vets around the world, there plenty on there about salmonella. http://www.pipa.be/en/newsandarticles/ask_the_vet jas

one of course they would say that, no one would use parastop there product if they said anything different. there nowhere on the british vet assoc site that says it still stands. that was a paper written 20 years ago and just because its still on the site doesnt mean its relevant. If you say it still stand show everyone where it says that.

All i will say to anyone on this subject is get the most relevant up to date ifno before making up your mind on the subject. All the current info available says vaccinate, Also when you have people like geoff kirkland and frank tasker 2 of the best fanciers britain has ever produced swearing by vaccination for salmonella you have to sit up and listen, it doesnt get any better than those to in the fancy. I have in previous threads listed up to date questions answered by some of the top vets in the world on the subject. I do not profess to be an expert, i aint no vet but what i am is a fancier with a fascination for pigeon health and i keep myself as up to date as i can on the subject. I will not up up information or give advice if it has not came from a reputable source. theres no doubt that pigeonscout was only trying to give what he thought was the correct info, but this time it wasnt. jas.

That information was written and published in 1991 (The Veterinary Record, Vol 128, Issue 7, 152-153 Copyright © 1991 by British Veterinary Association) how can you possibly say that is relevant now. Thats 20 years old. Sorry mate. but it says it on the top of the page of the link you have provided. A hell of a lot changes in 20 years. Lets get back to information thats relevant in modern pigeon racing.

Thats the thing its only the british veterinary association that gives that advice ask the same question to any dutch or Belgium vet and they will tell you otherwise. You have to agree that we are still years behind the dutch and Belgium's when it comes to this sport. so why does all the other countries say different, dutch, belgium, australian, south african and the usa vets all are pro vaccinate the british are not. In my opinion and it is my opinion you go with the majority not the minority. no vaccine regardless of what its for is 100% guaranteed that includes PMV vaccine.

I never said that the antibiotics help the immune system, what i did say it takes away any salmonella the bird may have allowing the vaccine to do its job of stimulating the immune system. I to am no vet but have contact with 2 of the top pigeon vets in the uk so again my information comes from the experts. The majority of pigeon vets world wide agree the opposite of what you are saying and they say you must vaccinate so who is right? i have a shelf full of books written by the top vets in our sport and they all say the same. one things for sure i will do what it takes to prevent my birds getting the disease, As others have said it wipes you out if you get it. I will continue to follow the advice of the professional vets i deal with, and will continue to read what the scientific world has to say and most of them are for vaccination not against it. so whos right and whos wrong that you have to make up your own mind on.