Pigeon therapeutics help

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 09:59:22 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]pigeon breast stuffed with black pudding[/quote]

Can I come round for dinner?

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Yantha Smyth — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:40:14 GMT

Thanks for all the responses. I can see there are many possibilities, and feel the owner would probably be much better off consulting a colleague with more experience in this area. It sounds like it is unreasonable to expect swift diagnosis based on a single sample and I am also unclear as to what more specific history has been obtained and any clinical exam findings leading up to this but understand the owner has carried out two treatments for coccidiosis and also some antibiotics.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Marie Kubiak — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:41:34 GMT

This sounds like a very vague presentation and I think you need to adopt a wider approach - post-mortem would be ideal as so many pathogens could be responsible and you will struggle to narrow down to a single process, especially as secondary bacterial and fungal infections can mask the primary disease.

Adenovirus, circovirus, herpesvirus, salmonella, chlamydia and management failings would be significant considerations but there are a vast number of potential co-infections that cause non-specifically sick pigeons. If a post-mortem isn't forthcoming then you can work through serologies via the VLA but you'll run out of blood by the time you have screened multiple birds for multiple pathogens!

Marie

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 17:29:03 GMT

[quote user="Sammy82"]I remember there being some debate about off licence treatment in pigeons as they were technically classed as food animals in Germany although I can not think of anybody who would eat a filthy pigeon.[/quote]

I'll eat a clean pigeon though, any time.

In the days when I cooked for myself i invented pigeon breast stuffed with black pudding, also pigeon casserole with beetroot, black pudding, apple, anything I happened to have left over and the scrapings of jam and Panyan pickle jars.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Sammy82 — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 16:15:45 GMT

From my pre vetschool working experience at a vet who dealt with a lot of racing pigeons paramyxo, salmonella, trichomonas and coccidiosis are the most common conditions. Coccidiosis would be high on my list with the symptoms you describe, also salmonella but the negative culture should rule this out. You can easily look for coccidia and trichomonas yourself. Just take a long swab and wet it (tap water is fine), then swab the crop and the cloake, press out drop of water from swab onto microscope slide, cover with cover slip and examine under microscope to look for the cocci oocysts and trichomona. If the drop appears cloudy that could be an indication for high cocci content. Trichomonas is usually visible as plaques in mouth/pharynx and causes respiratory distress.

I remember there being some debate about off licence treatment in pigeons as they were technically classed as food animals in Germany although I can not think of anybody who would eat a filthy pigeon. Not sure how the legal situation is now/here.

For Coccidiosis you can use Baycox (min. 8mg/kg, this equals to 6ml/liter drinking water) or Appertex tablets (licenced for piegeons) 1tabl/pigeons repeat after 3 weeks. You need to treat all pigeons, and loft hygiene is just as important.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:58:45 GMT

Hope it won't be a PM on the favourite.

Wynne

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:28:31 GMT

Why not do it yourself, look for gross symptoms take some piccies and take as many tissue samples as possible. They can go anywhere then. Otherwise in Surrey I would have thought AHVLA would be most likely.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Yantha Smyth — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:51:41 GMT

Yes, PM may well be the way to go. As microscopy is still pending there could yet be some info to be gained from the lab report. Does anyone know of a lab that would be able to do the PM? Surrey area.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:27:34 GMT

As your faecal examination is negative its more likely to be viral or toxins. Paramyxovirus would be top of my list although they're not showing respiratory symptoms - are they vaccinated against this? Also how does she store the food ?? mycotoxins. Doesn't sound as though you've done a PM examination - this could be invaluable. Meanwhile even though you are dealing with small numbers to start with isolating them into smaller groups if possible may at least reduce morbidity.

Re: Pigeon therapeutics help

Robin Grimmer — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:04:48 GMT

I think you will get a lot more information by having a post mortem done by an expert.