Evaluation

Every year there is something that makes the year special. For this year we can say the long wet and cold spring time what was followed by the first heat wave since 2006. As result that the weather conditions during the pigeon flights can be called exceptional. Especially during the heat period the conditions for the pigeons where hard. Because of that there were a lot of losses at several places.

The youngster flights in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands can be called catastrophic when we look at the big losses. But not only during the heat period there were more losses than normal, also the experienced older pigeons. But we could see this already months prior the heat period. In first instance you want to say it is coincidence, but of course coincidence can play a big part. But also many other causes were suggested by pigeon breeders and others what could be the cause, you can think of pesticides, radiation, eclipse by the youngsters, east wind at a blue sky, insufficient experience and natural diseases.

Of course as a veterinarian you get the question:” How can this all happen?”. Over the last few years we managed to develop a wide range of research opportunities in our Center. Just to give the pigeon breeders who consult us an possible answer of what’s going on. Besides the usual routine microscopic examinations of manure and throat we do a lot of bacteriological research on E. Coli, Salmonella, Pasteurella, Proteus, Haemophylus, Streptococci and Staphylococci and so on. But also quick screening for present viruses and fungus research. When we do not move forward we send materials through to labs in our country and aboard. Linked to the known preventive approach we can solve a lot of problems. Frustrating it is when you think you've checked everything and nothing is left to chance, while the results are still disappointing during the pigeon flights. As is known, the veterinarian is as good as his last diagnose so than you know it in those situations. I have been doing this for years now, so I am not getting higgledy-piggledy of it anymore.

I am self-critical enough to go look for causes. Why did not a lot of pigeons come back from the pigeon flights this year? Many people told me that this way you could divide the best from the good, because the bar is much higher. This would partly explain why there where that much losses during the heat period. But that is too easy. Why did we lose a lot of experienced pigeons during the program flights? No not only youngsters, also the experienced pigeons.

The weather conditions during spring and the beginning of summer where bad. A lot of lofts where clamp and moist. The pigeons could not get into good shape.

A lot of pigeons where checked 2 to 3 weeks prior and where found to be clean of airway infections, but they often got the airway infections back.  One thing where you have no influents on as a veterinarian is a the weather conditions.

That is one of the main reasons why I in principle resist against the ‘Timetables’ in the pigeon sport.

Because it looks like some pigeon breeders use a schedule as some kind of navigation and do not use their own brain to think logically. Some of the pigeons who had respiratory airways after a few weeks, although less, did get SGR. Normally, this gives such a support of the immune system that the pigeons are less susceptible to respiratory infections.  When checking these pigeons, they often had little mucus. This is something normally just that is common in chronic respiratory diseases. With other words: Strange. Usually about the beginning of May the peak of respiratory pasts, but this year it was in various lofts through to July. This made me wonder about what we could have missed.

Did we as veterinarians make a mistake when we did the examination. I speak of ‘we’ because other veterinarians are just as good as their last diagnosis, so I got plenty of ‘new faces’ on the floor to shine my light on the existing problems. During spring and summer I got the suspicion the we overlooked something. Often something is right there in front of you, but you just miss it because of business blindness. In the clinic we oversaw a bacteria what was missed by routine examination. By using a dark field microscope we could trace this bacteria. Tracing this bacteria is one, but showing that this bacteria is clinical significance is something totally different. Next to that it is important that nothing happens overnight and close of the factor of change.

So systematically we were looking for these bacteria, who had been given a name with the help of a microbiologist from an external laboratory. Somehow we were shocked by the frequency with which this bacteria was found. However, we found the bacteria in lofts where the pigeons remained of lovers who barely managed to get on the lists. That is a reason why we invited the top players to see if this bacteria could be found on their pigeons as well. That was not the case. I also found this bacteria in large numbers by youngsters who looked beautiful. Does this bacteria have a clinical significance? One week later, from one of the pigeon breeders, half of the youngsters did not come home when they were released a short distance from home. Other pigeon breeders who had pigeons with this bacteria lost a lot of youngsters but also the old pigeons during the flights. We set up a treatment focused on this, sometimes quite resistant bacteria. What turned out after treatment? The pigeons started to fly prices again, but more important the losses stops.  Coincidence?  Of course that is the question. It was and is very important to work critical and not to jump to conclusions to fast. Further research and analysing is necessary. It was clear that a line began to emerge.

This led to a hypothesis we developed within the clinic that basically means that it is a bacteria that, as such, is not to cause immediate illness, but due to the extreme weather conditions in the spring and summer opportunities rised up and helped with problems on the lofts. The bar was higher by the sometimes extreme weather conditions and therefore attacked the pigeons with an excess of these bacteria in their trachea than through the basket. Possible that these bacteria function as some kind of crowbar to open doors for other disease processors with the result that pigeons do not come home or flew off. It could also be that he only hinders the pigeons to get in form what causes them to fail on the heavy flights. When comparing with Trichomonas infection we know from experience that pigeons with a slight infection still come but once the pigeons have a massive infection, the performance drastically decreases. Pigeon races became top sport. In this light bacteria who are less pathogenic for pigeons and therefore not really interesting to be investigated by science, could have enough influence on the shape of pigeons which is needed to achieve top performances can not be achieved. If it is like a microbiologist, with whom I discussed the problem, said: ‘Maybe this bacteria is adapting to the pigeon and slowly getting more pathogenic. It is a given that this bacteria can easily be spread through the air.

By chickens and turkeys it may cause several respiratory diseases. In any case, I agree with the writing of an American who wrote an article, where the diagnosis is probably quite often missed because it is a bacteria that absolutely requires oxygen to grow. The author of that article wondered therefore, maybe rightly questioned whether the bacteria could still not have clinical significance. A fact is that the Agarswabs, those we get from many parts of Europe for bacteriological examination, never contains this bacteria. In fact: we send a number of samples with these bacteria to laboratories for research and often these bacteria could not be found back. Also when we had prove that we found that bacteria when we did our research. In this sense, the diagnosis indeed  are very easy to miss. Possible with all its consequences.

For now is till think that this bacteria is not seriously sickening, but one of many factors that can play a role in the state of airways health. As so often, it may be that an excess of one of the pathogens of respiratory infections in pigeons, even if there not so evil when they are on their own, under the right circumstances within or outside the pigeon they see opportunities and could lead to illness or loss of form. Knowing that the bacteria can be very easily spread through the respiratory tract is clear that the distribution through the travel baskets course is quite simple. As said further research is certainly needed before we draw premature conclusions. Nevertheless, it could be that the causes of the big losses this year have come to light.

Good Luck!