respiratory not quite

[Guest philb40]

hi all ,

just posting to pass on some knopwledge that might be relevant at the moment.

 

ive not had the best of young bird seasons and have struggled with respiratory probs with the young for about the last 3 weeks .

i treated with lincospectin for 7 days and this seemed to have done the trick then 2 days later the prob would recur . treated with doxy c same result .

then talked to my mate who flies in a different fed 30 miles away and he said he has had the same problem we both blamed it on the weather after all we had both run out of ideas.

He rang me today and told me that his vet had done a complete test on droppings and swabs and that the birds had chlamidia. Treatment was cyperfloxin 14 day treatment but you can race whilst medicating , this was 14 days ago he has gone from being 20 mins behind to 6th club last week and 1st club 2nd fed this week.( could have told me sooner !!)

 

i am going to give mine a try with this its too late to rescue this season but by all accounts there are a lot of fliers reporting stubborn resiratory infections in their birds and this could be the answer.

symptoms are

sneezing but no real discharge

loss of real appetite but not to the point of real worry if you know what i mean

green droppings as the sneeze develops

looking fantastic after treatment with linco or doxy etc flying well round the loft  but then when raced looking like they have flown 500 miles on return

This might be common knowledge if so then i apologise for my ignorance

[Guest j.bamling]

you can also get a white/yellow discharge from the throat with cylamida infection looks a bit like canker in the throat the vet i use says he has seen a lot of it this year !!! docxycycylin should have cured the problem !!!

[frank1]

can u catch chlamidia off the birds

[Guest philb40]

yes would have thought so as well but didnt , spoke to my vet and he said baytril would do the job , but as you know it is very harsh, and can make matters worse.

ive been flying on and off for 30 years but had a 8 year forced break and since returning to the sport there seems to be more problems with sickness than i remember.

[Guest philb40]

dont know whether you can catch it off the birds.

[ChrisMaidment08]

use caniston cream on cotton bud clears it loverly

[collins and stevens]

We had this diagnosed via blood tests on a cross section of birds taken from stock,ob racers and yb racers.Our birds flew well round home,droppings were good and looked fine ,but our performances plummeted and birds were comimg back from 100mls.Tylan and doxycycline were used for 21 days  together and then the birds were retested , apparently the vet (Retfords Poultry) looks for the antibody production to be non apparent to show the desease has gone. Talking to other fanciers some feel that you cannot move this desease , but touch wood we have moved on this year with 10 first prizes...........any body else experienced chlamydia we think it is a lot more prevalant than people realise and easily missed.

[Guest IB]

No offence, but I thought Chlamydia was the main respiratory illness. Its a viral disease but an unusual one in that it responds well to certain antibiotics.

[REDCHEQHEN]

No offence, but I thought Chlamydia was the main respiratory illness. Its a viral disease but an unusual one in that it responds well to certain antibiotics.

 

Its not viral - its bacterial - which is why it responds to antibiotics

[Andy8472]

We have had the same problem for years, tests always come back with ornithosis (Chlamydiosis), No antibiotics work apart from a 40 day course of doxycycline which by the time you finish the birds are ill with the length of time from the antibiotic and if they get over that when you put your birds back into the basket they catch it back so it's a waste of time treating them.

 

I think the misuse and overuse of antibiotics are the cause of a virulent form of chlamydiosis therefore is a BIG problem now and is the main cause of young bird loses in my opinion

 

We only use antibiotics if we have a big problem and don't give them willy nilly week in week out, i was told from a vet that enrofloxacin (baytril) is one of the worst drugs you can give pigeons and in the long run using it without guidance from a vet is asking for untold trouble.

 

We haven't used antibiotics all season up to now and have most points in the club so maybe we can race our birds without them?

[ch pied]

i was allways thought chlamydia was a sort of hy-bred thing in between a virus & a bactiruim , and will respond to anti-bio's , if you treat hard & long ,  20day's , useing DOXY , its a hard one to shift , i know it can be treated with the big gun BAYTRYL 10 day's only to returne with a vengence at a later date

[Guest IB]

 

Its not viral - its bacterial - which is why it responds to antibiotics

 

Yes you are quite right. I have checked my original source against the Web, and its clear from what NHS etc are saying that it is a bacterial infection. I picked up the error a long time ago from Wim Peter's book 'Fit to Win' in which he described it 'as one of the larger viruses' (p116).

 

You can only see virus with an electron microscope and the replies in the thread appeared to show the vet using an ELISA test to confirm the infection (by antibody reaction) which I also understood to be a procedure used for identifying a viral infection.  

 

Sorry if I misled anyone.

[collins and stevens]

We listened to very opinionated fanciers saying ornithose is not curable , but having an established team we sought vetinary advice . The test to pick up this desease was a blood test and after spending close on £480 pounds to test and retest after treatment (approx 30 birds tested) not 100% confident yet. Because this desease is picked up in the basket the recommendation of the belgian vets Guiselbrecht is to treat on day after race for ornithose , we did this for two seasons and excelled with over 80 fed and club cards per season and group returns.How ever we neglected to adhere to this regime for a season and although we still had good positions the group team returns dwindled and birds started to come back from shorter races really uncharacterisically tired. Maybe the use of the ornithose treatment over the previous two seasons had promoted our teams susceptability to the desease? This is a really difficu;lt desease to diagnose and very ,very difficult to comprehensively clear.