Help

[DJ]

i had been away for a week and left a friend looking after my birds,when i got home a couple of weeks ago i found a feral squeeker in my loft with my pigeons that that had been there for 2 days since my friend last let my birds out for a fly, i chucked it straight out of the loft and then the panic set in-what do i do now? well the first thing i did was one spot all my birds with ivermectin as the feral was covered in lice,then i kept watch? now some of my birds have stopped eating and just look as i fill the feeders without eating any corn? when i felt the affected birds crops they felt spongy and some had a small amount of corn still in them? some have now developed wet droppings and also lost weight? i opened the loft door yesterday and only about a third of my birds went out for a fly with the rest just sitting on their perches the affected birds all vary in age from yb,s,yearlings,right up to 04 birds, what would u do in my situation? debs

[wambat]

hi

can you get some nifuramycin this is the stuff i find cures the complaint as good as any

dont feed for 24 hours ,

single birds an be dosed with soda crystals diluted in warm water and put in the crop with a syringe the bird

after awhile wil vommit.

need chachole tablts from chemist after repeat if not vomited after 1 hour

 

jim

[DJ]

hi

can you get some nifuramycin this is the stuff i find cures the complaint as good as any

dont feed for 24 hours ,

single birds an be dosed with soda crystals diluted in warm water and put in the crop with a syringe the bird

after awhile wil vommit.

need chachole tablts from chemist after repeat if not vomited after 1 hour

 

jim

thanks for the reply jim well ive left them without feed today and put fennel tea in their water as suggested by a friend, to make matters worse the feral squeeker that i threw out has now realised that he can get fed by visiting next doors bird table so is still hanging about, hopefully i might see a slight improvement in my birds tomorrow deb

[Guest IB]

Any improvement, Debbie?

 

Must admit I didn't think 2 days with a feral would have caused bother, but I'd have popped a crushed garlic bulb in the birds water for a day or two just to be sure. Other thing I thought may have happened was birds had maybe been underfed the time your friend was looking after them, and gorging now you're back. That can lead to them holding corn, though not sick, and not going out might have been down to moult, they're not keen flying when growing their last flight.

 

Hope all's well with them now.

[DJ]

thanks jim and IB for your help,i got some charcol tablets from the chemist and gave the worse affected birds half a tab each and some have eaten some corn today so hopefully that has helped, im still waiting for the test kit to arrive in the post so i can have their droppings tested so at least i will know what im treating for? ive also put cider vinegar in their drinking water as im told that helps fight infection? apparently most street/feral pigeons are infected with salmonella as they eat scraps in the street that have been in contact with mice/rats that carry the disease so thats a concern for me as the feral squeeker will probably have drunk water from my drinkers probably spreading the disease:( i will post an update tomorrow thanks again guys debs

[peterpau]

Teaspoon of houshold bleach in the water. next day scub drinkers and then a teaspoon of cider vinegar. Simples. DON'T MIX them though.

[Guest IB]

thanks jim and IB for your help,i got some charcol tablets from the chemist and gave the worse affected birds half a tab each and some have eaten some corn today so hopefully that has helped, im still waiting for the test kit to arrive in the post so i can have their droppings tested so at least i will know what im treating for? ive also put cider vinegar in their drinking water as im told that helps fight infection? apparently most street/feral pigeons are infected with salmonella as they eat scraps in the street that have been in contact with mice/rats that carry the disease so thats a concern for me as the feral squeeker will probably have drunk water from my drinkers probably spreading the disease:( i will post an update tomorrow thanks again guys debs

 

Debbie, Salmonella is a disease DEFRA monitor. I have figures from them that I hope will show that it is unlikely your pigeons have been infected from this single contact. Between Jan 2005 and Dec 2009, there were a total of 54 cases of 'salmonella in wild pigeons'.

 

I don't think a young feral with salmonella would be very active, I think it would look very ill , be very ill and die very quickly. Your little 'pal' must be full of beans if its still foraging for food in a neighbour's garden.

[Wiley]

Debbie, Salmonella is a disease DEFRA monitor. I have figures from them that I hope will show that it is unlikely your pigeons have been infected from this single contact. Between Jan 2005 and Dec 2009, there were a total of 54 cases of 'salmonella in wild pigeons'.

 

I don't think a young feral with salmonella would be very active, I think it would look very ill , be very ill and die very quickly. Your little 'pal' must be full of beans if its still foraging for food in a neighbour's garden.

 

IB have you ever had paratyphoid?

[Guest IB]

IB have you ever had paratyphoid?

 

I've been 'lucky' enough not to have had paratyphoid or any other disease in my loft.

[Wiley]

I've been 'lucky' enough not to have had paratyphoid or any other disease in my loft.

 

well I can tell you I've had paratyphoid quiet a few years ago, and some of them don't even show any signs, so you can't really comment about them looking very ill and not very active, its known as the silent killer for a reason

 

Also how many wild pigeons was tested between the time stated?

[Guest IB]

well I can tell you I've had paratyphoid quiet a few years ago, and some of them don't even show any signs, so you can't really comment about them looking very ill and not very active, its known as the silent killer for a reason

 

Also how many wild pigeons was tested between the time stated?

 

The comment I did pass was an opinion, my opinion, on a feral youngster, and it was done to try and reassure Debbie that it was far from a foregone conclusion that the bird was infected with Salmonella - as she had been told.

 

I did not ask how many wild pigeons were tested, I asked about Salmonella reports in racing pigeons. DEFRA also gave me additional information about Salmonella reports in wild pigeons and unspecified pigeons and how they got them: 'These figures are derived from the scanning surveillance programme carried out by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) as part of the UK Veterinary Surveillance Strategy. This is a DEFRA funded programme to detect the emergence of new or exotic animal health & welfare issues and to monitor the levels of endemic and zoonotic disease agents such as Salmonella in animals. Any Salmonellae which are isolated through this monitoring or in tests carried out in private diagnostic laboratories must be reported to DEFRA under the Zoonoses Order 1989 and these are included in the figures given to you'.

[Wiley]

The comment I did pass was an opinion, my opinion, on a feral youngster, and it was done to try and reassure Debbie that it was far from a foregone conclusion that the bird was infected with Salmonella - as she had been told.

 

I did not ask how many wild pigeons were tested, I asked about Salmonella reports in racing pigeons. DEFRA also gave me additional information about Salmonella reports in wild pigeons and unspecified pigeons and how they got them: 'These figures are derived from the scanning surveillance programme carried out by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) as part of the UK Veterinary Surveillance Strategy. This is a DEFRA funded programme to detect the emergence of new or exotic animal health & welfare issues and to monitor the levels of endemic and zoonotic disease agents such as Salmonella in animals. Any Salmonellae which are isolated through this monitoring or in tests carried out in private diagnostic laboratories must be reported to DEFRA under the Zoonoses Order 1989 and these are included in the figures given to you'.

 

so out of the 54 that had samonella, as far as we all know 54 could have been the number tested?

[retired]

hi

can you get some nifuramycin this is the stuff i find cures the complaint as good as any

dont feed for 24 hours ,

single birds an be dosed with soda crystals diluted in warm water and put in the crop with a syringe the bird

after awhile wil vommit.

need chachole tablts from chemist after repeat if not vomited after 1 hour

 

jim

 

 

Understand now the Nifuramycin is very very difficult to get hold of due to authorities getting onto Rohnfried and several other companies about what they are supplying the fancy

[Guest strapper]

there is only one bit of advice id give anyone wondering what they have or might have...GET THE BIRDS INSPECTED BY A VET!..prefrebly by a good pigeon vet or one with some knowledge of them.

 

your wasting valuble time hanging about and wondering...make sure with tests.

i consider myself to have a good degree of knowledge about illneses but i would advise what i said above straight away.

[Craig05]

so out of the 54 that had samonella, as far as we all know 54 could have been the number tested?

 

Wiley

all the bloke is trying to do is give DJ his opinion and try help out. why so negative?

All the best Craig

[Wiley]

Wiley

all the bloke is trying to do is give DJ his opinion and try help out. why so negative?

All the best Craig

 

Craig, no negativity was aimed, however if someone is stating figures, surely you would want to know how many where tested to gather some factual evidence, as anyone can just say only 54 wild pigeons in test from such and such date proved to have samonella, but 54 out of how many, then you can graph a probability.

[Guest IB]

so out of the 54 that had samonella, as far as we all know 54 could have been the number tested?

 

I don't have that data, I've already said I didn't ask for it, but I do know from reading previous reports that a lot of birds are tested and not all prove positive.

 

But IMO you appear to want to compare the wrong data. Debbie had been told “most street/feral pigeons are infected with salmonella as they eat scraps in the street that have been in contact with mice/rats that carry the disease so thats a concern for me as the feral squeeker will probably have drunk water from my drinkers probably spreading the diseaseâ€. That statement about ferals is very worrying if true, especially during a weekend when veterinary help is unlikely to be available to her to examine and treat her birds. If it was true, I’d expect in a large population (thousands of ferals?) that there would be many cases every year of dead and dying birds which when tested proved positive for the disease. There aren’t. In fact in 5 years there were only 54 cases for all wild pigeons . So either the figures provided by DEFRA are wrong, or the statement ‘most street/feral pigeons are infected’ is wrong. That’s what I was comparing, and I did so to try and reassure Debbie that this single contact was unlikely to have infected her pigeons with salmonella, because based on the official figures I had, what she had been told was probably wrong.

 

An easy comparison with the DEFRA figures can be had from Table 1 of a paper Tom Pennycott provided me with, on his earlier research on Salmonella in Wild Birds in Great Britain between 1995 & 2003:

 

Feral Pigeons – birds examined: 53. number of birds infected : 5. sites infected: 5.

 

He notes that 4 pigeons had typical salmonellosis lesions, and had died from the disease while the 5th had died from trauma, and the recovery of salmonella from it was an incidental finding. So in 8 years, only 4 instances of the disease in Ferals.

 

Further comparisons will be more difficult as the DEFRA website is being reconstructed and the only reports available from it are 2002 – 2007

 

http://www.defra.gov.uk/vla/reports/rep_wildlife.htm

 

If you want to look at 2007, this report does give numbers of wild birds tested & found positive for Salmonella :-

 

Wild Birds – Garden Birds, page 22, RSPB

Wild Birds – Salmonella, page 24, VLA Salmonella Surveillance Team, CERA, Project FZ2000, Sue Kidd

 

http://www.defra.gov.uk/vla/reports/docs/rep_oie07.pdf

[Wiley]

I don't have that data, I've already said I didn't ask for it, but I do know from reading previous reports that a lot of birds are tested and not all prove positive.

 

But IMO you appear to want to compare the wrong data. Debbie had been told “most street/feral pigeons are infected with salmonella as they eat scraps in the street that have been in contact with mice/rats that carry the disease so thats a concern for me as the feral squeeker will probably have drunk water from my drinkers probably spreading the diseaseâ€. That statement about ferals is very worrying if true, especially during a weekend when veterinary help is unlikely to be available to her to examine and treat her birds. If it was true, I’d expect in a large population (thousands of ferals?) that there would be many cases every year of dead and dying birds which when tested proved positive for the disease. There aren’t. In fact in 5 years there were only 54 cases for all wild pigeons . So either the figures provided by DEFRA are wrong, or the statement ‘most street/feral pigeons are infected’ is wrong. That’s what I was comparing, and I did so to try and reassure Debbie that this single contact was unlikely to have infected her pigeons with salmonella, because based on the official figures I had, what she had been told was probably wrong.

 

An easy comparison with the DEFRA figures can be had from Table 1 of a paper Tom Pennycott provided me with, on his earlier research on Salmonella in Wild Birds in Great Britain between 1995 & 2003:

 

Feral Pigeons – birds examined: 53. number of birds infected : 5. sites infected: 5.

 

He notes that 4 pigeons had typical salmonellosis lesions, and had died from the disease while the 5th had died from trauma, and the recovery of salmonella from it was an incidental finding. So in 8 years, only 4 instances of the disease in Ferals.

 

Further comparisons will be more difficult as the DEFRA website is being reconstructed and the only reports available from it are 2002 – 2007

 

http://www.defra.gov.uk/vla/reports/rep_wildlife.htm

 

If you want to look at 2007, this report does give numbers of wild birds tested & found positive for Salmonella :-

 

Wild Birds – Garden Birds, page 22, RSPB

Wild Birds – Salmonella, page 24, VLA Salmonella Surveillance Team, CERA, Project FZ2000, Sue Kidd

 

http://www.defra.gov.uk/vla/reports/docs/rep_oie07.pdf

 

Thank you for providing the figures 5 over 53!

[DJ]

well guys thanks for all your advice,its much appreciated i opened up my loft this morning and again only some came out leaving the majority of my birds just sitting on their perches in the loft,the one thing i did notice when cleaning out was that one bird has some blood in his/her droppings? when it was time to feed them some of them came down to eat corn but others just looked on? hopefully my test kit will arrive tomorrow so i can get the droppings checked asap,the only avian vet in my area has now retired and the other vets i have tried were worse than useless so i wont waste my money on them hopefully i can post some good news soon thanks again debs