Facts
The many e-mails, but also the conversations on the various fairs, making it clear that there are still many misunderstandings about many relatively simple things. Of course partly they don’t make it easy for the pigeon breeders.
Indeed, we can see the direction that the veterinarians who focus primarily divided into a group that mainly prefers prescribing antibiotics to keep the birds healthy and busy an another group to which I count myself, who want to only use antibiotic if necessary, but also to build a more natural support, so that the birds are less susceptible to various infections that threaten them, making the use of medication be more limited.
As described more often we see increasing the results in the races with the last mentioned approach. Also by this approach we see that the pigeons are less depending on medication to stay healthy. An even more important advantage is that this approach causes the possibility of an better selection. Because the weaker ones are not kept alive by al kind or (unnecessary) cures. The end result is a tribe of pigeons what becomes strong.
But well, the veterinarians from both groups give advise based on their own vision. These opinions are often not obviously in accordance which makes that the opinions of the pigeon breeders can be greatly diverge. On the dividing line between these views, often a mix of everything develops itself what doesn’t help anybody.
The cancer
One of the conditions in which much difference of opinion seems to be is the treatment of Cancer or Trichomoniasis. I think all the veterinarians would agree that this parasite is only fought well with a chemotherapeutic cure of sufficient length and sufficiently high dosed. Especially when the R is on the month the pigeons drink less and these cancer parasites are pretty strong and don’t get killed. We often see that pigeon breeders who say they gave a 6 day cure, the strong cancer parasites are still going strong. The pigeon breeders cures as prescribed on the box. But the practice learns that this is (often) not enough in many cases. Because the pigeons drinks less, the parasites will not all die. In time the strongest parasites will live, and are even harder to fight. So resistance is lurking. We can tackle this problem partly by feeding the pigeons and take the drinking pots away and give them back when they have the urge (because of the digestion) of fluid. When you do it this way, the change to success is higher. More effective is the approach applying the medication on the food. The practice shows that this way of cures is most successful after controls. So this deserve the preference. But to really tackle the problem then they give capsules (two days taken orally). Most infections will be completely cured this way. There exist capsules on a natural base. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the results as described on the instructions on the cases that we tested. Possible that the cause of this difference in virulence located ("power") between the different parasites. This would possible stated that unfortunately we saw little or no effect of mentioned capsules.
The same problem we saw with the recently developed (by us) Usneano plus tincture. The application of this solution in the drinking water, resulting in test pigeons in an almost total reduction of the present cancer parasites. However, practical application was not always successful. There were some infections who didn’t completely disappeared. It is possible that the insufficient amount of drinking, same as with the medication that often has insufficient effects, is responsible. What we do know is that parasites have a strong dislike for Usneano Plus.
Coccidiosis.
Coccidiosis is also such a disease where opinions vary widely. When an infection is serious and when not. Before we do this in more detail, we will have another important point broach. I often see surprised faces when we examine pigeon droppings at a pigeon club. Full attention, I sometimes see the pigeons breeders watching a staff stirring the droppings until a proper solution is obtained which is then twice centrifuged at high speed. The second time is hereby a saturated solution of zinc or a saturated common salt solution used. In this way we get a true picture of the parasites present. Not only by this way the results can be effectively measured, but it is also the only way to do a proper droppings examination. The talks that to get a good impression of the dropping by adding some water and to put this under the microscope, is big nonsense. Only heavy infection, NO the really heavy infections are to be ascertainable. It’s not from this time anymore to examine droppings like that. In my opinion it is sending the pigeon breeders into the forest. We keep in assessing the degree of contamination of the manure with coccidia infections at 0-4 plus. Here we only give from 2 plus the advice to do something about the coccidiosis.
Coccidia are very difficult to totally eradicate. It is an illusion to think that by using medication you can permanently clean it. Often enough we see a pigeon breeder who course and 3 weeks later he was confronted with a similar infection. The cause usually lies in the pigeon breeders has failed to burn the loft out during or after the course. I sometimes hear lovers who proudly tell me that they have the loft also disinfected with Dettol or other disinfectant. In itself it is not wrong to disinfect the loft as well, but this is done to get rid of worms and coccidiosis one can forget it appropriately. Worms and coccidia withdraw very little to disinfectants. That only helps is the burner or the dryer of a paint stripper. One should also take into account that countless coccidia may be located on the roof where the pigeons often are, or in other places where the birds foraging. Even with treatment, we see a decline in the effectiveness of many anti-coccidiosis. Not that this is already beginning to take dramatic as this is often with the treatment of cancer, but yet we now give the advice to treat for a longer period then as we did in the early days. If we recommend to use Baycox will apply the following advice. In a two plus two days of infection, infection with a three plus three days and with a four plus four days of infection. And when the R is in the month we advise to add 1 or 2 days to be sure. During the flying season we advise to not use baycox because we have to strong impression that it influences the shape negatively. A possibly alternative is the Usneano plus. An German breeders tested this for us, who had a very heavy coccidios infection. After curing for a week he brought back some droppings to examine, to our amazement that the coccidioses was gone. Reason enough to repeat these investigations the coming period. In itself it would be nice if a support product would prove to be greatly reduced. Both coccidiosis and the cancer. But there are more swallows needed before we can speak of Spring
Bully bacteria.
Recently I had to laugh with some pigeon breeders when he spoke about “Bully Bacteria”. I didn’t know where he was talking about at first. A while ago I made the announcement that we found a bacteria that we combined the pigeons being in a bad shape. This bacterium (in hindsight) is very easy to show, is in principle not pathogenic for birds, but still very annoying when the colony is infected with it. We saw in the last year regularly lofts that played poorly and lost pigeons, which were infected with this germ broadly. We make in the presence of this germ a subdivision of 0 to plus 10, where we suspect that low infection rates have not overly affect the shape of the pigeon. However, we saw pigeons, where the lovers had a large proportion of their experienced pigeons lost to Barcelona and other flights which proved massively infected with this germ.
Breeders who had performed well and had little or no loss, the pigeons where not carrying this bacterium at all. But also youngster and program pigeons got lost when this germ where present in great extent. In almost all cases, this problem was solved when given a thorough cure against this germ. With emphasis I would point out that the pigeons often showed no symptoms when they carried the germ. In this sense, these bacteria basically is just an annoying bully. That why they gave them the name “Bully Bacteria”. For now we have 2 products that work against that germ. Experience teaches that long enough and should be sufficient to clean the germ with an high enough doses. What we hear from many fans is that during the course of the pigeons seem to be tieriger and better in the springs seem to come down. In view of the fact that there are only reacted by this germ on medication, it is of great importance that there is long cured long enough. In the winter months has shown that even a 14 days cure was insufficient enough, when pigeons didn’t drink enough. A cure of minimal 8 days is necessary to get rite of this bacteria, only when the pigeons drink enough.
When they don’t a cure mix with food is preferred. Many pigeons breeders must be wondering how this bacteria is really called. Me too. That is why in collaboration with a German colleague who has contacted a German University to find out what this bacteria is. For now it is only the “Bully Bacteria” who demolishes the shape of the pigeons and makes it hard for the pigeons to come home, without some any symptoms. Luckily the problem is to be solved easily when one deals with it properly and pigeons breeders can enjoy their pigeons after a cure. That is where it is all about.
Good Luck!
Peter Boskamp
