Young Bird Sickness

[Guest philb40]

Just want to have my twopenneth on this controversial subject.

 

Young bird sickness is a Virus and as such cannot be treated by any antibiotic and throwing expensive herbal remedies at this similarly is not effective.

 

The virus was explained this way by my vet who is not your small animal vet but a poultry expert.

"young bird sickness is a term used to cover a number of viruses that can cause the symptoms we all recognise as young bird sickness. It is absolutely useless trying to treat it just as you cannot treat the common cold but it is important to manage your birds during and after this illness.

In fact trying to treat it with antibiotics can cause its own problems as you destroy the flora and thus promote the growth of fungus in the crop."

He suggested the following, Apple cider vinegar in the water at the rate of 5ml per pint , this acidifies the gut and helps to stop the yeast infection associated with holding corn in the crop and to kick start the gut the use of live yoghurt . This was recommended to be given directly to each bird at the rate of 5ml per bird .A 5 ml syringe was suggested straight into the crop.Using live yoghurt on corn was not recommended as there is no guarantee that the birds will get the dosage required.Using it dried on corn was descibed as useless because the bacteria that we want is killed when it dries.

AS i said just my and my vets opinion but i hope this saves fanciers spending money for nothing.

[Guest cloudview]

a good informative post , as i know a lot of fanciers have treated with baytril

[david]

Hi PHILB40

 

Many thanks for sharing these ideas.YBS is surely near the top as a lethal hinderance in our sport

 

DAVID

[greenlands]

I think if you don't treat during /after ,the birds that survive might pass on to their offspring some type of imunity but then again if you don't treat and the birds get ecoli you can bin them because in my opinion they will die if the get it bad enough.My birds had YBS early on in the season and right away I treated for ecoli,the results was no dead birds and a fast return of appitite.

JMO.

Lindsay

[Guest strapper]

Just want to have my twopenneth on this controversial subject.

 

Young bird sickness is a Virus and as such cannot be treated by any antibiotic and throwing expensive herbal remedies at this similarly is not effective.

 

The virus was explained this way by my vet who is not your small animal vet but a poultry expert.

"young bird sickness is a term used to cover a number of viruses that can cause the symptoms we all recognise as young bird sickness. It is absolutely useless trying to treat it just as you cannot treat the common cold but it is important to manage your birds during and after this illness.

In fact trying to treat it with antibiotics can cause its own problems as you destroy the flora and thus promote the growth of fungus in the crop."

He suggested the following, Apple cider vinegar in the water at the rate of 5ml per pint , this acidifies the gut and helps to stop the yeast infection associated with holding corn in the crop and to kick start the gut the use of live yoghurt . This was recommended to be given directly to each bird at the rate of 5ml per bird .A 5 ml syringe was suggested straight into the crop.Using live yoghurt on corn was not recommended as there is no guarantee that the birds will get the dosage required.Using it dried on corn was descibed as useless because the bacteria that we want is killed when it dries.

AS i said just my and my vets opinion but i hope this saves fanciers spending money for nothing.

 

good post but anyone in the know will tell you that youngbird sickness isnt treated..its the secondary infection that accompanies it!.

which is usually e coli...which we treat.

the youngbird is battling the adeno virus and its immunity is at a low because of that..then along comes ecoli? and kills or puts the bird under extreme pressure and the birds immunity cannot always take both illneses at once.

 

youngbird sickness is its popular name..but adeno virus is the medical name which also affects oldbirds but in an entirely different way.

but can still make the birds becaome ill.

so just to clarify things you dont treat youngbird sickness you treat the secondary infection which at times kills the birds.

 

cider vinegar is not a cure!..its a preventative.

as ive posted in recent articles you cannot treat in the crop if its blocked. so vinegar will just sit in the crop with the water and corn.

i was informed of this by a good pigeon vet a long while ago, and i also had researched it on many occasions.

[Guest mick bowler]

Are we to really believe that every young bird that gets sick has YBS or adenovirus, because that is the way it seems nowadays. As i said before i have never had anything like this, and having read this i know i couldnt of had it as the ones i decided to treat for their illness recovered.

 

I thought Adenovirus was just a generic name and that these type of viruses effect the resp tracts more than anything? I dont recall many saying they had resp problems with other "YBS symptoms".

[Guest IB]

I know that a lot of fanciers associate YBS with e coli. And some think it is just e coli. Humans and birds both share e coli as part of the 'good' bacteria in our guts. And there's a lot of it , in humans e coli forms 60% of that 'good' bacteria, countless billions of them.

 

So I do not believe that e coli is a seperate infection. What I think is happening is that the virus damages the gut wall defences (part of the immune system) in some way allowing the bacteria in the gut to pass through the wall and enter the blood stream, so causing widespread bacterial infection and illness in the bird. 'Good' bacteria are only 'good' when they are in the gut, where they belong, if they get into the bloodstream they are just as dangerous, perhaps more so, than pathogenic bacteria. I say 'perhaps' more so because they are likely to be resistant to all the antibiotics in normal use in the loft, so they will take some shifting if they become the cause of an infection.

[Guest IB]

Are we to really believe that every young bird that gets sick has YBS or adenovirus, because that is the way it seems nowadays. As i said before i have never had anything like this, and having read this i know i couldnt of had it as the ones i decided to treat for their illness recovered.

 

I thought Adenovirus was just a generic name and that these type of viruses effect the resp tracts more than anything? I dont recall many saying they had resp problems with other "YBS symptoms".

 

I think what I was trying to say in the other thread, that fanciers tend to call every illness their young birds get as YBS. It's not. YBS is a recognised disease which affects young and old birds.

 

The virus that I am referring to is circovirus. It infects respiratory and digestive tracts, and destroys the bursa in young birds, damaging one arm of the immune system. The virus goes to ground as particles in the major organs including testes and ovaries, from where it can infect the developing egg, or flare up again in the old bird.

[bluecock]

Just want to have my twopenneth on this controversial subject.

 

Young bird sickness is a Virus and as such cannot be treated by any antibiotic and throwing expensive herbal remedies at this similarly is not effective.

 

The virus was explained this way by my vet who is not your small animal vet but a poultry expert.

"young bird sickness is a term used to cover a number of viruses that can cause the symptoms we all recognise as young bird sickness. It is absolutely useless trying to treat it just as you cannot treat the common cold but it is important to manage your birds during and after this illness.

In fact trying to treat it with antibiotics can cause its own problems as you destroy the flora and thus promote the growth of fungus in the crop."

He suggested the following, Apple cider vinegar in the water at the rate of 5ml per pint , this acidifies the gut and helps to stop the yeast infection associated with holding corn in the crop and to kick start the gut the use of live yoghurt . This was recommended to be given directly to each bird at the rate of 5ml per bird .A 5 ml syringe was suggested straight into the crop.Using live yoghurt on corn was not recommended as there is no guarantee that the birds will get the dosage required.Using it dried on corn was descibed as useless because the bacteria that we want is killed when it dries.

AS i said just my and my vets opinion but i hope this saves fanciers spending money for nothing.

i have used cider vinegar for 5 yrs now and not once have i had any signs of ybs i give it every tuesday and thursday one of the best bits of advice i've ever had(thanks Div Young).

[geordie1234]

a use the same and i just got 3 young birds of div young

[Guest mick bowler]

I think what I was trying to say in the other thread, that fanciers tend to call every illness their young birds get as YBS. It's not. YBS is a recognised disease which affects young and old birds.

 

The virus that I am referring to is circovirus. It infects respiratory and digestive tracts, and destroys the bursa in young birds, damaging one arm of the immune system. The virus goes to ground as particles in the major organs including testes and ovaries, from where it can infect the developing egg, or flare up again in the old bird.

 

 

Is circovirus a form of adenovirus? Also i always thought circo was almost always fatal, so anyone who has it will no doubt suffer fatalities?

[Novice]

Is circovirus a form of adenovirus? Also i always thought circo was almost always fatal, so anyone who has it will no doubt suffer fatalities?

 

As far as I am aware they are different.

Circovirus is a much more recent development.

It attacks the Bursa in the youngster thereby reducing it's immunity to anything which happens to be in your environment.

That is my understanding.

[Guest strapper]

When the well-known adenovirus in the past could only be found with young pigeons (adenovirosis type I or “classical adenovirosisâ€), in more recent years it also occurs with old pigeons (adenovirosis II or “necrotising hepatitisâ€).

The latter form is much worse than the former because it can cause a lot of death among the old pigeons ; both diseases have become in only a few years two of the main infections among pigeons. Taking into account the enormous impact on our pigeon population and for the sake of our hobby I think it’s useful to examine what we already know about this disease. The obvious questions a pigeon fancier asks are : what are the symptoms and what can I do either to prevent or to treat the disease.

But first of all we’re going into the cause and the course of the disease.

 

As stated the origin of the disease is an adenovirus ; this virus has been described with several birds ; mostly it doesn’t play an important role in pathological processes except for some diseases, two of which among pigeons. The viruses can easily be located through microscopic examination, on the basis of their typical structure ; it’s very difficult though to isolate (=to breed) them. More than 20 years ago the classical adenovirus type I was found in our regions ; since then it has also been described worldwide. The worse form, the adenovirosis type II has only been found since 1992 (also for the first time in Belgium). The main difference with adenovirosis type I is that also old pigeons can be infected and that the course of the disease is much worse as it causes much more death, while there’s no efficient treatment possible ! It’s a rather frequent disease occurring all through the year.

 

Adenovirosis type I infects, as stated earlier, especially young pigeons ; the virus is very often introduced in the cote by a strange pigeon or after contact in the travel basket ; it is excreted with the manure and hence can infect the other young. Because the intestinal wall is seriously damaged, germs that normally live in the intestine get the chance to proliferate enormously ; in this way they probably damage the intestinal wall even more and can enter the blood circulation. The typical symptoms of adenovirosis type I are ; the illness occurs very sudden and typical is vomiting heavily, diarrhoea, a very bad condition in general, a large part of the young pigeons are infected (there’s a very fast infection within 3 to 5 days) but mostly only a few pigeons die. Very often it lasts only 5 to 10 days. Additional E.Coli-infections will make the disease last longer ; so it’s of utmost importance to treat these additional E. Coli-infections as quickly as possible ! The recovery of the pigeons that suffered the disease can take some time, probably because of the slowly recovering liver-cells caused by the multiplication of the virus in the liver-cells. It should be taken into account when training the pigeons. Another rare syndrome of the adenovirus type I can be seen with youngs in the nest ; typical is that some pigeons stay behind and only few die.

The virus with adenovirosis type II is capable of causing massive liver necrosis with a characteristic course as a consecuence : there are very few symptoms as the pigeons die within 2 days. The only symptom that is sometimes seen is vomiting and yellow diarrhoea. The number of dead pigeons can sometimes be very high what makes that the disease sometimes develops dramatically. Remarkable is that the pigeons that aren’t infected after about 5 to 6 weeks stay healthy without any kind of symptom.

The possible diagnosis can be made based on the symptoms mentioned above after which an autopsy, if desirable, can give a definite answer through hystologic investigation of the intestinal wall or liver ; in this way you can exclude other diseases such as parathyphoid, hexamythiasis, intoxification, streptococcus, acute Coli-sepsis.

As far as the extermination is concerned : there is no efficient vaccination available. Whenever you find adenovirosis type I with young pigeons, it is absolutely necessary to treat the secondary Coli-infections as fast as possible ; most of the young pigeons are carriers of this germ. Avoiding stress (transport, training, …) is also important. For adenovirosis type II the general rules are hygiene, ventilation, avoiding overpopulation … These are essential to keep the risk of infection as low as possible.

As a conclusion you could say that there is only little information known about these viruses and the origin of these diseases. An important reason is that it’s very difficult to isolate the virus. The fact that old pigeons don’t become ill in case of adenovirosis type I could be explained by a well-formed resistance ; summer young and late young that don’t suffer the disease in their year of birth often expose typical symptoms in the year after ; you will never see this with pigeons that suffered the disease in their year of birth.

 

As stated in the introduction the impact of both adenoviroses on our pigeon population is enormous ; hence the development of a good vaccine would be more than welcome.

 

Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht

 

the info above is from the person above and not meant to suggest i wrote it...it is for info purposes only

[dal2]

I have always found that the first time your younuns are stressed like a bad toss or race or chasin frae a predator then thats when the YBS or whatever you like to call it starts. I,ve tried loads of proventions but have had it quite often but always after a stressful episode. JMO

Steven

[Guest Owen]

I have suffered with YBS just as most people have, but I do not get it any more. I accept the point that you can not vaccinate against a virus. However, there are things you can do to protect your birds from this scourge.

The first thing is to sort the loft out. It has to be bone dry at all times and the ventilation must be of the best. The air change has to be rapid and there must never be any smells. The sun is probably your best friend because it is not only a fine distinfectant but it will create those important dry conditions. If you get this right, the droppings will be dry very quickly and you should never see mould on the droppings at any time. Then you need to cultivate a good deep litter and move the most recent droppings twice every day so that they can never become wet in patches under the perches.

Next you should make sure that your young pigeons are never overfed. If they do not show great enthusiasm when you feed them, you are giving them too much. There is nothing more likely to bring on sickness than stuffed crops, especially over night. Any bird that shows reluctance to trap or is slow to go to the feeding trough should never be fed.

Stress can be relieved by making a square hole in the loft where a traing crate can be fixed. The birds can be trained to be totally confident in being in the training crate because they will be in and out all the time. I remove the water from the drinkers and place basket drinkers on the training crates so that the birds are absolutely sure about where they will find the water.

Many birds are suffering with the common health problems. Canker, cocci, worms and respiritory disease. Then there is the yeast infections brought on by indiscriminate use of antibiotics. I believe that much of the sress they suffer comes from the fact that they are never checked with a microscope and they are under serious challenge before they get to train of race.

Another important consideration are the conditions they are transported to the liberations sites in. A lot of transporters are just not fit to transport pigeons in a way that will get them to the liberation sites in the best possible condition. I feel sure that a ggod many convoyers and race controlers are getting the blam,e for poor returns when in fact it is the

[greenlands]

A bit of not too deep reading for anyone interseted.

Lindsay.

http://www.pipa.be/en/newsandarticles/ask_the_vet

[dal2]

A bit of not too deep reading for anyone interseted.

Lindsay.

http://www.pipa.be/en/newsandarticles/ask_the_vet

 

Jeez O Lindsay yer gan tae havem confused wae the array o illness on there mate

[greenlands]

Jeez O Lindsay yer gan tae havem confused wae the array o illness on there mate

You'll manage Steven,nowt like being confused mate.

Lindsay.

[Guest philb40]

hi again , some good stuff posted and quite right that you want to treat the secondary infection IF one occurrs that is why i stressed that the use of antibiotics straight away is pointless. I take the point about the need to avoid the secondary infection but do we guess when this occurs?

 

The reason i posted is that i had young bird sickness recently , very little sickness more of loss of form and appetite .

I had two birds that just stopped eating other than that they behaved normally , i contacted my vet and told him the symptoms as one bird was never going to make it to the race team i suggested that i would kill it and have an autopsy done .

i took the bird in freshly killed and the vet rang me that evening saying that no obvious problems could be seen and that he would culture some swabs .

He rang me the following day and again one day later and the results were normal.That is when we discussed the content of my post.

I mentioned adenovirus and circovirus and he said quite possible BUT it could be one of many viruses.

I agree that the cider vinegar should not be used on a crop full of corn i use it if i can smell the corn fermenting and after having let them empty or emptying their crops , i also recommend Nystan for the same job at a rate of .5ml per bird for three days. Nystan does not enter the blood stream so there are no side effects to worry about.

I know that different fanciers have their own methods just seems a shame that there is an industry preying on our ignorance .

Knowledge is power lol

[peterpau]

Young Bird Sickness. I would have thought more appropriately called a syndrome, as it would appear not to be one virus but a variety of problems together. Antibiotics then would be inappropriate and accidifying the gut with lemon juice or cider vinegar will only partialy help. I'm no vet but, a teaspoon of household bleach in the drinker on return from the first two races has worked well for me the last two years, further more I no longer train my birds to drink in the basket. They will soon learn to drink when racing, and they will not dehydrate over night, on the first race. If you have 10 crates the length of the transporter and 20 birds a crate. Why do you want your birds to drink the same water as 200 birds with YBS potentialy. Warwick fed had a tough un and this was our clubs first race my returns were the best in the club. Just a thought.

[greenlands]

Hi Peter,reading through your post,household bleach,I totally agree with it,an ex local fancier who could hold his own in the best of company was an avid user and advised many lads to use the same when other remidies failed.

Not learning youngsters to drink I have my doubts about and your reason not drinking in the transporter to reduce the chance of YBS ??.I would think that not drinking especially during hot weather would loose more youngens than the onset of YBS.

Drinking or not YBS is a virus and I would have thought airborn.If they are going to get it they will.There must be another reason somewhere as to why some get it and some don't.

Just my opinion mate,I might be completely wrong, but untill someone sorts a vaccine or some other treatment to sort this lot out I'm affraid that pigeon racing is on a downward spiral.If a fancier doesn't get it good luck to him/them but before long he/they will have no one to race against.

Good luck to all you fanciers and good returns,unfortunately I'm a fancier who gets YBS every bloody year,maybe I'll try the domestos treatment,what have I to loose.

Lindsay.

[peterpau]

They aint gonna dehydrate overnight and it does go against the grain I heard the household bleach long before I dared use it.

It definately sounds counterintuitive, but it has worked for me the last two years.

The day is already hear I now have two clubs I can get in and neither want to race the first young bird races.

[Guest philb40]

do not use domestos thick bleach it has to be thin bleach (loads of articles on this on the web)it is used as a sanitizer and can be used by humans to sanitize water when camping.

Milton sterilizing fluid is just as good.

[Guest IB]

Honestly can't understand why people want to put bleach in drinkers when there are bona-fide drinking water sterilisers which are sold for that purpose. Vanodine v18 is one, an avian disinfectant which can be added to drinking water - to keep water pathogen free - 'says so on the tin'. Bleach on the other hand can be neutralised on contact by any protein.