Please Help

[Peckedhen]

I think I'm loosing him. This is not just a pigeon, he's my favourite pet and very tame. White fantail., green diahorrea for weeks,spoke to guy from Harkers last Monday who said it was enteritis, to isolate him, give water with sugar and salt for two days, half spoon of small seeds (I use a general pigeon mix)then increase gradualy add in corn peas etc. I've been doing this but this morning he is on the floor not moving, he's pecked at some seeds but wont drink. Pleeease can anyone suggest what I can do? I love this bird.  :'( :'(

[Guest shadow]

It sound like coccidios and you need to get some coxoid for the water or tablets they are quicker. You do not say how long the bird has been sick, but unfotunately cocci. can kill a healthy pigeon within 3-4 days without treatment you can try a vet but not many vets know a lot about pigeon ailments if the bird has been ill for a couple of days this is probably your best bet Knowing your feelings towards your bird. good luck.

[Joe90]

If you are not racing then anti-biotics woud be better, this kills all bacteria, then give them pro-biotic to pick them up after 10 days of anti-biotics and your birds will pick up, as for your pigeon then it dont look good, i had a similer thing with mine when they got stressed moving

 

if you take your birds to the vets then he will only give them anti-biotics anyway

 

good luck

[Joe90]

I found this for you to identify what you have wrong with the birds, hope it helps

 

http://racingpigeon.proboards51.com/index.cgi?board=id&action=display&thread=1121423682

[Joe90]

I think I'm loosing him. This is not just a pigeon, he's my favourite pet and very tame. White fantail., green diahorrea for weeks,spoke to guy from Harkers last Monday who said it was enteritis, to isolate him, give water with sugar and salt for two days, half spoon of small seeds (I use a general pigeon mix)then increase gradualy add in corn peas etc. I've been doing this but this morning he is on the floor not moving, he's pecked at some seeds but wont drink. Pleeease can anyone suggest what I can do? I love this bird.  :'( :'(

 

 

You should hand feed him some big feed and dip his beak in the sugar water

 

[Peckedhen]

Ok, thanks guys. I really appreciate your help, I'm not racing but, the more I've read on this forum the more interested I am becoming. I've no medicines at home - I've just started with pigeons, they are in a dovecote so I guess like open loft and they peck and pick around all over! I only have four babies (4 months).

 

Someone had suggested cocidiosis(sp) but then another said it wasn't that so I didn't reat him for it. :-/  He's had green diahorrea for almost all the time I've had him but, until putting him the shed last Monday, he seemed perfectly healthy despite it. The other three are fine. Joe, I've done what you suggested re feeding big seed and dipping his beak, WOW! It worked like magic, within 30mins he's a lot brighter, still on the floor but looking more alert and even drank a bit.

 

So, shall I treat him with both cocoid and antibiotics?  Do I treat the others too? Where will be the quickest place to get these from? The soner I start the more chane I'll have of saving him. Thanks again

 

Sue

[Joe90]

just the anti-biotics will sort anything they have but treat them all

 

if you take them to a pigeon vet he will charge around £100 to look and treat the birds

 

if you want some antibiotics then i can sort you some out  

[Peckedhen]

That's really  kind of you Joe but, I want to get him on them tomorrow if I can. I'll try the place where I got the pigeon food from - see if they sell antibiotics . I certainly can't afford vet fees!    Thanks again.

[fifestay]

Baytril at the Vets then a Probiotic, try honey and electrolytes as well

[THE FIFER]

try a few drops of household vinegar over its throat or a drop of TCP in water, this will dry up its droppings,

[Peckedhen]

What do you mean by over its throat? Do you mean open its beak and put them in?  Can you tell me a bit more - how much TCP to water and how many drops  do I give it?

 

 

[Joe90]

Baytril at the Vets then a Probiotic, try honey and electrolytes as well

 

 

Couldn't put it better my self

 

baytril  and a probiotic

 

[Guest]

This thread shows some of the problems rife in pigeons. In short, if you don't know what is wrong with your bird, don't treat blind.

(1) First and foremost, isolate it. Put garlic in its water, feed lightly, seed or smalls.

(2) No improvement within 24 hours: Take the bird to a fellow fancier (preferably a group of two or three, three heads are better than one) and ask if they know what is likely to be wrong with it. If they can't identify the problem - and you wan't the bird - get it to the vet. Nothing near £100. Consultation, set a broken wing, baytril and anti-inflammatory set me back £18 three weeks ago.

(3) Slight improvement; (bird a bit perkier / brighter looking, dropping appearing to form or firm up) - continue garlic, increase quantity of seed, daily, adding small then larger quantities of grain. When the bird is again eating normally, get some natural yoghurt down at the supermarket and add a few spoonfuls to its grain for three days - as good a probiotic as any.

.

Be careful of the advice you take. There is more than one bleeding dumplin' offering it in this forum. Baytril is an antibiotic, prescription only in the UK. Antibiotics kill only bacteria. They are bugger-all use against anything else like canker (an animal), cocci (a worm), intestinal worms, or a virus (like paramyxo).  And I would use an antibiotic only as a last resort and only when prescribed by a vet.

[Guest speckled]

right so yet again,ya  give garlic in the water, feed small seed,  then "Isolate"the bird,the infected one i take it.them ya take the infected bird around someone elses loft, (speading infection).If there is no joy, consult a "vet".But he will only prescribe you antibiotics,such as "Baytril". So what i dont understand is, thay you new, what was wrong with your pigeon,a Broken Wing,so why treat this pigeon that has a broken wing with Baytril. Courious Speckled.

[Peckedhen]

???  You been on the vino Speckled? ;D

 

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. I've got  the birds caught and in the shed and am treating all four of them.

[fifestay]

Speckled, I object to being called a bleedin dumpling, the Guy is not racing and desperately wants to save his bird. i would not normally advise baytril and you are right that it does not kill Viruses (nothing does) however it can keep the system well, not allowing secondary infections. Enteritis is generally bacterial I am led to believe, so the probiotic will purge the bad bugs and the probiotic or natural yoghurt will replace the gut/intestines with good bugs. Small seed eating little and often garlic etc all good stuff

[Guest speckled]

Sorry fifestay,dont remember calling ya a,bleedin dumpling.Hope the birds do recover.& peckedhen sorry no,must be the Baytril, has that effect. ;D

[Guest]

Apologies, Fifestay, if you took the bleedin dumplin remark as personally aimed at you. Far from it. It was a general remark (MINUS SMILIES which I can't find on this new forum) aimed at those who feel antibiotics are a cure for everything. Staying with your last post, you are correct that it kills bacteria but what you missed out was that much of the digestive and other processes within a pigeon's gut are done by bacteria - and it bleedin' kills those too - ev'ryfink, stone dead. If the bacteria lining (and protecting) the gut wall are destroyed then this leaves the way open for other nasties to invade the gut wall, get into the bloodstream and use it as a fast track to all parts of the pigeons body. So rather than the request for a cure for this sick bird, your antibiotic carries the risk of killing it instead. The probiotic helps restore 'live and friendly' bacteria to the gut - but I would hesitate doing anything to remove it in the first place!

Obviously only One step at a time for Speckled:Garlic

 

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a common plant used world wide for food and for a variety of human ailments and problems. It has been reported to have insecticidal, antibacterial, antifungal and anti-tumour properties, as well as lowering blood sugar and fat levels, reducing the dangerous plaques that plug blood vessels and lead to heart attacks and strokes in humans. How garlic affects racing pigeons is speculative, but here are some general facts gleaned about this plant from a few medical and nutritional publications.

 

The principal active agent of garlic is allicin a sulphur-containing compound which with its breakdown products produces the characteristic odour. The odour is related to the presence of sulphur. When the cloves are crushed allicin is formed by the action of enzymes on a precursor chemical known as alliin. Other biologically active compounds related to allicin, such as ajoene may also be extracted. The positive effects of fresh cloves of garlic seem fairly certain whereas information for modern commercial preparations in general is not very convincing. One reason for the difficulty of showing the effectiveness of garlic is that many active chemical compounds in the cloves may be lost during processing. For example, carefully dried sliced cloves retain their potency, but extracts or oils prepared by steam distillation or organic solvents may have little activity. Cold-aged extracts have a reduced odour and may retain more of the activity of garlic. Allicin is known to break down during steam distillation for the production of the volatile oils used in many garlic preparations. As well, the alliin content of natural garlic can vary 10 fold.

 

There is also confusion about the issue of "odourless" garlic preparations. Some of them have no aroma, but neither do they contain any active ingredient. Some active preparations may not have an odour but if allicin is released when the product is eaten there is a very good chance that there will be a detectable aroma - and it is the aroma that is one of the problems. Potency of garlic appears to depend on pungency - that is odour. Once garlic is dried into odour-free powders or pills it loses some of the properties that may make it useful in health!

 

Distilling all of the information about garlic to a few simple statements is very difficult to do. However, it seems that, whatever the basis for its use, fresh cloves are the superior source for the important ingredients of garlic. Other commercial preparations such as powders or oils may or may not be useful since the processing procedures may dilute or eliminate the effective compounds. If you have a choice then - and most of us do - buy cloves of garlic from your grocery store and prepare fresh solutions as you need them.

 

Given the "touchy" nature of the important, active compounds in garlic it seems likely that heating or boiling crushed cloves above 60° C (remember water boils at 100° C ) may be enough to cause a major loss of these key substances. On the basis of this information it is logical that home preparations of solutions of garlic should not be heated in order to retain the important compounds in the solution. Be aware that allicin is readily converted to a more volatile compound called diallyl disulphide—which means that its effects can be transient.

 

Allicin is known to have antibacterial properties and has been said to be effective in concentrations as low as 1:125,000 (that is, one part allicin to 125,000 parts water). When compared with penicillin, allicin is said to have an activity that is about 1% of the activity of penicillin. Garlic inhibits the growth of, or kills about two dozen kinds of bacteria (including Staphylococcus and Salmonella spp.) and at least 60 types of fungi and yeast. Allicin appears to be the major chemical responsible for this effect. So if the aroma is destroyed by cooking or processing and allicin is associated with the odour garlic may lose its ability to fight bacteria, mould and yeast. In one recent study, researchers looked at the ability of garlic to kill the organism causing tuberculosis. They added an allicin-rich garlic extract to 30 strains of tuberculosis-causing bacteria growing in test tubes. A month later, the garlic had done critical damage to all 30 cultures.

The trace minerals selenium and germanium are two constituents of Japanese garlic and these minerals may have some effect by their activity:

 

1. as antioxidants (substances that protect cells and tissues from the damaging effects of peroxides in the body)

2. their importance in the normal development of the immune system

3. they may have good activity as anti-cancer agents.

 

Selenium itself has been shown to have a broad spectrum of anti-cancer activity in rats. On the other side of the coin, many cases of allergic reactions to garlic are known to occur in humans - such as dermatitis (inflammation of the skin) and asthma. One investigator found that the maximum tolerable dose of fresh aqueous extract (i.e extracted into a water-based solution) in humans to be 25 cc (slightly under one ounce). Amounts greater than this caused severe burning sensations in the gullet and stomach, as well as vomiting. Some compounds extracted from garlic are similarly irritating to tissues in the mouth of humans.

 

A possible benefit of garlic or its compounds may be its ability to increase mechanisms for eliminating substances such as cancer-producing agents. In some studies, garlic has been shown to have a stimulating effect on certain enzymes that are known to be effective in removing toxic substances from the body. These substances can damage body organs, and even lead to cancerous changes, so garlic may well provide some measure of protection. In a laboratory study for example, mice were fed diallyl sulphide obtained from garlic prior to being exposed to a cancer causing chemical. Mice fed the garlic-derived compound had 74% fewer cancers of the colon than those that did not receive the garlic compound. It has also been shown in animals that the sulphide compounds of garlic can inhibit the development of cancer of the lung, large intestine and gullet.

 

Unfortunately, there is no solid evidence that garlic can protect humans from cancer. This may be because it doesn’t protect, or because few good studies have been done in humans. The question about whether garlic is good for human hearts can’t be answered yet. It is simply too early to tell. However, preliminary studies in humans and animals suggest that garlic may lower levels of artery-clogging fats such as LDL (bad) cholesterol, and raise levels of HDL (good) cholesterol. The catch is that the amounts used were equivalent to 14 to 230 cloves per day for a human! Obviously it would be very difficult to stand too close to such a person! There may be other positive effects for blood vessels. Garlic appears to increase the time it takes blood to clot, and may help to dissolve clots that have already occurred. Obviously one bad effect would be the failure to allow the blood to clot in individuals also on aspirins which are used for the same purpose - in other words, bleeding could occur when the two are used together. Much, much more work has to be done to evaluate the effects of garlic on human and animal health.

 

Now what about the use of garlic in racing pigeons? It is a popular, widely used product but solid, scientific information on its effects in pigeons seems to be scarce. Everything from cloves of garlic to powders, pills and oils are available in health food stores, grocery stores and by companies selling products for pigeons. Are there any real benefits, or are the "benefits" in the eye of the beholder, i.e. the fancier who uses garlic products? Little scientific information for racing pigeons seems to be readily available, but it should be possible to extrapolate information from work done in humans and laboratory animals to pigeons.

 

First and foremost, logic based on a number of studies says that the best source of the good effects of garlic is fresh cloves of garlic. Manufacturing procedures in the preparation of garlic products can vary considerable, and since important active compounds can be lost very easily during processing it seems best to avoid these products as they may contain few, if any, of the useful compounds. Further, it is best to crush cloves of garlic and add them directly to drinking water for pigeons, rather than heating or boiling them to avoid losing a number of key chemicals in the cloves. Remember that heating garlic cloves above 60° can cause the loss of odour and medicinal properties. Secondly, garlic may provide a temporary antibiotic effect on disease-producing bacteria, fungi and yeast both in the digestive tract and body tissues, by reducing their numbers during the period that it is in the drinking water. Thirdly, the trace minerals selenium and germanium present in garlic may give a boost to the immune system of pigeons to increase their ability to fight disease-producing organisms of many kinds. In domestic livestock, selenium is known to be important in the normal development of the immune system while the animal is growing in the uterus. A deficiency of selenium and Vitamin E has a definite adverse effect, because in such deficiencies the development of immune system is retarded. As a result, the newly born animal or bird may be completely or severely restricted from protecting itself against invading organisms of all kinds.

 

Fourthly, although dissolving blood clots (the cause of heart attacks and strokes in humans) or preventing their formation in the arteries of humans is important in human medicine, it is known that racing pigeons are highly resistant to the build-up of fatty substances in their arteries. In human, these fatty substances may clog blood vessels or they may induce the formation of a clot at the point where the vessel is narrowed by the fatty deposits and result in a heart attack or stroke. Fifthly, garlic could have a role as a detoxifying agent as there are indications that chemical compounds in garlic may assist the body to detoxify, neutralise or eliminate noxious substances.

 

The use of garlic after a race may assist the so-called "depurative" diets in restoring a bird to normal racing condition. Whether lactic acidosis is a real problem in returned racers is still debatable in my opinion, because fat is unquestionably the major fuel for racing. Burning fat for energy is an aerobic process in the body and lactic acid – the by-product when glycogen is used as fuel in an anaerobic process, should not be present in any great amount. Braking and landing at the end of a race are very likely anaerobic processes, but the amount of lactic acid produced from such rapidly occurring events should be miniscule.

 

In theory it could be shown that birds actually sprint the last few miles of a race, then there could be a good basis for believing that lactic acid is produced and that this needs to be eliminated. It is known that pigeons that are not exercised reasonably soon after a long gruelling race may develop marked swelling of the breast muscles, which become hard and board-like. The birds become "tied up" and have difficulty flying from the floor to the lowest perches or nest boxes. Given this knowledge, it is possible (and indeed likely) lactic acidosis is involved here and early workouts after a race would eliminate the problem. It is also possible that the use of crushed garlic cloves in drinking water at this time might add some extra benefit in allowing the liver and other organs to metabolise lactic acid and other compounds and to help restore the birds to normal racing condition.

 

Dosages of garlic for pigeons are difficult to come by particularly since there is such variability in the amount of the key chemical alliin which is converted to the active compound allicin in garlic cloves.

 

Garlic in racing pigeons remains quite an enigma. We use it without really knowing why. Our ignorance is shared by many people including the human and veterinary medical communities who have only tantalising bits of information to suggest that there may be a number of positive effects from the use of garlic. Certainly studies in laboratory animals and humans suggest a number of desirable effects. Whether these effects apply directly to racing pigeons is just not known at this time. However, present evidence from human and laboratory animal work and the empirical experience of many fanciers suggest that, used judiciously, crushed cloves of garlic in drinking water may be a highly useful product in the loft throughout the year but especially during rearing and the racing season. Garlic-based oils, powders and pills are likely much less useful.

 

Possibly newer developments in extracting the active principles of garlic may get around the problems associated with current methods. Until these problems are solved, fresh cloves of garlic from the grocery store are still the best source of the medicinal properties of garlic.

 

[Guest]

Speckled, step 2:

Isolate the sick bird. Don't think you'll have a big enough box to isolate the rest, and leave the sick bird loose alone in the loft. Then again, maybe that box where your brain should be.....

[Guest]

Speckled, step 3:spreading infection

.

You're the expert.

[Guest]

Speckled, step 4: The vet.

.#

I'm sure I said he set a broken wing (after identifying where and what was broken) and gave me antibiotic and anti-inflamatory. The antibiotic was prescribed because he had found bruising, swelling and a cut at the break. Signs of infection, perhaps?

[Guest speckled]

Think what ya like Bruno.Where did ya get,the essay from,on Garlic.Never thought of all that by yourself did ya.do surprise me,& for ya info.i use Garlic 365 days a year,so you could of saved yourself all that eftort,. As  i no the benifts.of it use.As for the brain,being in box.Think what ya like,but insluting,Wont "Isolate" the problem,as for the speading of infection.Ya never been to my loft.so how can you condem,myself & me birds,The Question was."what cure for Y/B sickness, i gave my honesy opion, of how i delt with it 5 years ago.I did not ask to be insulted, but a Jack-in-the-box,like you.You can carry on your way, & i will carry on mine,IF & WHEN, it does appear in my loft.

[fifestay]

No probs Bruno ...good article tho' and v interesting

[jimmy white]

hi pecked hen, hope your fav, birds is ok, if not may i sugest you take the bird to the vet asap, send the bill to me at 90 pentland park  loanhead  mid lothian eh20 9pb  i wish you well with the bird,    we seemto be slightly ,   going off in a tangent on the forum , but at least all these fancirs are trying to help.  therehave been somevery good points made by all, but it is difficult to diagnose  the problem over the forum  without actualy being there end seeing the bird      i wish you well with the bird and maybe you could let us know how you get on  all the best jimmy white

[Peckedhen]

Thanks Jimmy.

 

What a star you are and thank you for your kind offer.  I'm totally confused by all the conflicting opinions and advice!  However, I've started all four birds on antibiotics, the ill one is looking much better, it's droppings are no longer bright green but still fairly loose.  A kind gentleman who races pigeons nearby has looked at it and thought coccidoisis. So, I'm going to finish the antibiotics then give them some yogurt. If it's droppings are still not right I'm going to give them coccoid.

 

Do you think that I should bath the bird? I don't want to stress it more. It's a white fantail but, it's feathers are badly stained now. If so what do I use? Thanks.