Drinking water preferably pure (05-04-23)
When they glow with health I brighten up, the sky seems bluer, my wife prettier, the boobs of my neighbours wife more striking and the world looks better than it really is. I therefore have to make every effort to stay away from the lofts.
The reverse is also true.
If the animals sit with their shoulders raised over excrement that is no good, then feelings of uneasiness creep over me.
Then I reluctantly go to the loft and feel like I'm standing on an empty platform in a deserted village on a cold dark night: train gone, wife gone, job lost, friends angry, wallet lost, dog dead, fountain pen leaks and I am shocked at every door that slams. Bit of an exaggeration, but what I want to make clear is why I had such compassion for that friend. His pigeons were not sick, they fell straight back, stone dead.
REAL FRIEND
We've known each other since the Beatles. When our troubled parents no longer objected to the length of our haircut but had problems with the color.
Together we were behind the girls (and said it was the other way around) and together we played football in the same team.
Won many games and lost even more.
It was I who once persuaded him to also keep pigeons and our views are more or less the same.
So little cleaning. That is not without danger because if you are troubled with worms (especially hairworms) or paratyphus, you will hardly get rid of them if you don't cleean.
However, the vet never found eggs of worms in his pigeons and then there are no worms, is his logical conclusion.
Coccidiosis then? Sometimes a little. But never so much that it needs to be cured. Why then did pigeons die? Possibly a combination of paratyphus and Adeno!
CURE
Had he underestimated paratyphoid? During the moulting season, he had treated every year.
Experience had taught him that this had little or no influence on the moult.Sometimes the expiration date of the medicine was passed, but he dares to exceed that with medicines that have been stored properly.Admittedly, you don't have to observe that due date to the exact day either. The manufacturers are cautious and take a safe margin.
Now his pigeons had been treated against salmonella with Baytril for ten days and then he had given them a vitamin boost.
After all, that's how it should be after a cure. At least, that was the general idea.Soon after, the trouble started.
ELEVEN DEAD
In the morning a yearling cock lay dead. Hmmm. One dead pigeon? That was to live with. However, the hens were terrified.They were sitting motionless with raised shoulders and blinking their eyes.
The green-yellow puddles with those bright yellow jokes left little to be desired: Adeno, or something wrong with the liver. Bright yellow manure often indicates this.Sometime later dead pigeons.
He rushed to the vet and he also thought of Adeno. Maybe along with paratyphoid.With "stuff" from the vet against adeno you have to be lucky. There is (as yet) no effective remedy available that offers 100% certainty of cure.In the end, most of the pigeons recovered, eleven died: two cocks and nine hens, which is a somewhat strange ratio.
I myself always had the impression that hens are more susceptible to Adeno and paratyphoid, but that has not been scientifically substantiated.Incidentally, there were considerably fewer problems with pigeons that were kept in the open aviary.
AND THEN
A while later, my friend accidentally spoke to a scientist from the University of Ghent. He told his story and the scientist listened carefully."Eleven dead?" Could have been worse, he thought.
The 'Adeno 2' variant in particular can be devastating.He told the scientist about the course of treatment and the subsequent vitamin boost. What he then heard was astonishing, because that vitamin boost could, according to the scientist, have something to do with it.
BY VITAMINS?
The scientist:'If the virus is lurking, it doesn't take much to strike. Stress, laying eggs, strenuous exercise, overpopulation, falling moult, but especially a changed drinking pattern are not without danger when the virus pressure is there.''Perhaps the pigeons had little to drink because of the treatment with Baytril?' my friend asked.
That turned out to be unlikely. It was possible that the virus had struck because of a reduced intake of drinks due to the vitamins (!) in the water."Vitamins caused the sickness?"'Extremely small chance,' the expert responded, 'but not entirely impossible. And you would be just that one.'
LESSON
What else did the doctor say?
a. No loft, not even that of the greatest champions, is safe from adeno.
b. Adeno in old pigeons strikes faster and more deadly than in youngsters.
c. There seems to be a connection between adeno and the pigeon's 'water management'. Spraying sick pigeons with water, possibly 'enriched' with electrolytes, certainly does no harm.
d. No one knows why, but practice shows that for some obscure reason hens seem more vulnerable than cocks.
e. Pigeons in an open aviary run less risk because of reduced virus pressure.f. Playing well in lofts where the manure remains is possible, it even has advantages, but you play more safe if you take hygiene into account.
g. Prevent pigeons from drinking less at all times. That is why it seems better, if necessary, to administer medicines, etc. via the feed.
From a dissertation by Dr Devriesse I also peeked the following:
'Salmonella (paratyphoid) can live a very long time in nature. One month in plain water. Two years in wastewater. A month on an eggshell, a year in soil, even longer in manure.'
He also states: 'Probably direct contact with germ excretors plays a greater role in the spread of paratyphoid than the long-term survival of the germs in the outside world.'Research of manure in travel baskets in the trucks has shown that salmonella was found in many samples.
As long as it goes well, little cleaning of the loft may have advantages.You may get pigeons that become more immune and can take a beating better if they are in the baskets for a longer period of time, for example because of a delayed liberation.
But, as said, in case of problems, they can be major for non-cleaners. And then you have to think in particular of paratyphoid, worms and strepto cocci.Trump is currently in trouble as a pathological tax evader. As pathological non-cleaners, my friend and me may not be an example to follow.
Typical Adeno. Once a bird does not stand up any more it is finished.