Approximately 30 days ago, I received 6 young birds as a gift from a sucessful and long time flyer, (maybe 6 weeks old, strong & healthy). I had just finished my semi annual coxi/worm/canker 7 day treatment. I put the 6 ybs stright into my young bird loft (I'm an idiot, ok). I've 75 yb and 50 breeders in a connected loft. 10 days after the gift birds arrived 1 of them became sick with massive canker and w/in 12 hours from my observing the onset was dead. Figuring this must be a secondary infection caused by something worse, my vet sent off the bird to the state lab. I issolated the remaining 5 gift birds, scrubbed and disinfected all the lofts, torched the nest boxes. Treated all birds, including the isolated birds, for 7 days with doxycycline (Ornopharma), ronidozole, and trimethoprim - all on the food. The water got garlic/lemon - in substantial doses. Now being followed up with probiotics (5 days) and baby formual added into the food. 7 days after the sick bird died, now, 17 days from introduction of the gift birds into the loft, the lab reported circovirus.
So far no other birds show any signs of being unwell - but the droppings of every bird in the loft have certainly tightened up - including the 5 quarnateened birds. The dead bird showed no signs of loss droppings.
But, now what do I do? The vet said do blood tests on maybe 10 birds, including the 5 quaranteened birds. But, I'm not sure if the expense ($800) will provide any course of action. The literature seems to say that the circovirus is close to impossible to get out of the loft, not responding to disinfectents or heat up to 167 degrees.
What are my choices? Kill all the birds and burn the loft? Just wait until more birds show signs of suspiciously server symptoms of common pigeon diseases? How long do I keep the 5 birds in quarantee? They look unbelievably healthy. Until now my loft has been unusually blessed with good health. Any ideas on what to do?
