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infections


mosslands1
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Since a few years, circovirosis is a new threat to our young pigeon population. Young pigeons, younger than 1 year are very vulnerable to get infected, especially till 4 months old.

 

Way of infection

For the moment the way of infection isn’t very clear, but probably the virus spreads through the droppings, perhaps also via food or water that is infected, or may be through inhalation. Transmission via the egg is possible but not proven yet.

 

Symptoms

Once a pigeon is infected, the circo-virus will infect especially those organs that are very important to build up resistance (those are called the lymphoid organs, such as the thymus, the spleen, bone marrow, bursa Fabricius,…)Because these organs are infected, the pigeons are not capable to make a good, valuable resistance, even against the most common and “harmless” infections, it is possible that they may fail to make any immunity.

Young pigeons in the nest that become infected will become thinner and perhaps die.

Symptoms as lethargy, no appetite, becoming thinner, diarrhea, respiratory problems, lower performances are very common with this disease.

Depending on the severity of the secondary infection, and also the age of the pigeon when it was infected with the virus the pigeon will be severe or not that ill at all (f.e. paratyphus gives much more troubles compared with trichomonas)

Sometimes you can see that the feathers don’t grow like they should be, but for the moment there is no evidence that this problem is caused through this virus.

There are also plenty of infections that are without any symptom.

 

Diagnosis.

Formerly it was only possible to diagnose this disease after an autopsy on a pigeon by mean of a PCR test on internal organs such as the Bursa Fabricius, but now it is also possible to have a PCR test done on the droppings of the pigeons.

 

Treatment.

At this moment it isn’t possible to cure or to attack the virus itself by means of any medication.

The treatment is especially focused on prevention. Preventing your pigeons to have contact with the virus, this means being hygienic, keeping the pigeons a while in quarantine are very important in this opinion. During flights, the last one is of course not possible.

Therefor it is necessary to be sure that your pigeons can build up an own strong immunity, and that they have an optimum health.

Last but not least, in times of infection with circo-virus, it is very important to treat the secondary infections, this can be trichomoniasis, coccidiosis, paratyphus, adenovirosis,…

Vaccination is not available at this moment.

The Circo-virus is very stable in the environment, it can resist fe 15 minutes a temperature of 75°C. This means that disinfecting a loft against circo is a very hard job to do

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interesting dogeon, the guy in my club had it 1st in his youngbirds, there droppings almost pure clear fluid and then dead within hours. It then spread to his yearlings and finally to the stock loft and his sons loft who was starting on his own this year.

He was recommended everything under the sun but nothing touched it. It has now gone through the loft and they have lost 130 birds!

 

Phil

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Guest Grasshopper Lofts

hi dogeon is another symtom of this not being able to fly as i have one now in quarentine that was flying out great then took a turn for the worst and not although seems to have perked up cant fly

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Damian, that sounds like the bird may have had a knock!

 

Yes Peter they are devestated, burnt all boxes and perches from race loft which is 2 gardens from there house and stock loft and soaked the place for days with virkon-s. They have some youngbirds in there again which have been ok, I took him another batch on monday.

They were very near to packing up completely, I realy feel for the son as he was so looking forward to flying his own birds after I got him through his driving test during the winter.

He has spent a lot of money on youngbirds but I for one am glad they are going to continue as they are good guys!

 

Phil

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it does spread rapidly, he went down the birds one morning and all was well, thought great maybe the 4/5 dead birds a day had come to an end.

He cleaned, fed, watered etc, went in for his breakfast and looked down the garden to see one dead in the aviary, still warm!

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Circovirus, Rotavirus, Adinovirus.... pigeons go light and take days to die. Herpesvirus..... pigeons that seemingly look ok just drop from the perches dead. A Streptococcal Infection could be another cause of a quick death.

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his test results came back as Adenovirus, but as you say Tony that takes a few days as it lowers the imunity allowing other problems to set in.

Also would only normaly effect young birds as old birds will have a reasonable imunity to most things!

I think the problem with most labs is they give out results within a couple of days and don't give the virus time to grow under lab conditions to find out what it is for sure!

 

Phil

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These are all new to me,did hear/read about them on occassions,and am totally naive regarding same,never having witnessed these virus,s can birds be immunized against them,is there any preventive measures could be used,is there any research being done on same.

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circovirus has no cure, Adenovirus isn't actualy a virus and can be treated with antibiotics but I would doughbt if research is being done into the cause, certainly notin this country.

The only thing you can do is be prentative and maintain a good level of hygene, isolate sick or run down birds imediatly, don't allow strays to stay in with your own birds etc etc.

Prevention is better than cure!

 

Phil

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