The old Belgian (17-09-25)
The old Belgian
Things happen in a person's life that he won't soon forget. Like my visit to an older fellow fancier on his birthday. "Long will he live," it sounded loudly. The old man sat there as if he didn't believe it and didn't feel like it even more. I had known him for a long time. Another old-fashioned ‘grain and water man’ who only races from Quievrain (120 km) and normally the cheerfulness himself. Except now.
PROBLEMS
I asked if everything was okay. 'Fine', he responded, but not with the pigeons, they have everything wrong. Then go to a good vet, I advised him. But you know how some are.
Previously, it had always gone without. Sick pigeons were removed and so over the years he had managed to build up a stock of naturally healthy pigeons.
Will that still be possible in 2025? Very exceptional, until it goes wrong. As much as you might want to, you can't sideline the vet in today's pigeon sport. Then inevitably comes that moment when things go wrong. Like with the old man.
"I'll come and have a look," I promised. Not that I know much about pigeons, but words like trichomoniasis, coccidiosis, paratyphoid and so on are not strange to me. For him, that was Latin.
NEXT DAY
Shortly afterwards I was on his doorstep. The first thing he did was to take some dead pigeons of I guess about two weeks old out of the garbage can.
They were razor-sharp and smeared with dirty green manure.' Paratyphus," I said. He had never heard of it.
Then to the loft, he took some eggs out from under the pigeons and lifted them up significantly. Almost all of them unfertilized.
When I saw a pigeon that was limping a bit and another with a hanging wing that also had difficulty flying up and in a box some greenish mush droppings, I was sure.
Then he handed me a pigeon and asked me to look in the eye.
I don't know anything about it, I said, but did what he asked.
I didn't see anything special except that they were a bit pale.'
That pigeon normally has red eyes, now it looks like a white-eared pigeon.'
‘You've let it get way too far, go to a vet and as soon as possible, that's only going to get worse," I said. He shrugged.
AFTERWARDS
Later I saw him again and I asked how it was. He had indeed been to the vet, who had checked the throats, examined the droppings but found nothing.
The vet also thought of paratyphoid and therefore manure was sent to a laboratory, but nothing pointed to paratyphus.
'Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's not paratyphoid', I don't know what is.
I asked if I could take some sick pigeons with me.
I was going to attack it with medication. Not to play the benefactor, but more out of curiosity. Regarding paratyphoid, I was stimulated at the time by the question of what is most effective against it: A product based on chloramphenicol (such as the former Altabactin), Trimethoprim Sulfa or Baytril.
TEST
I put the sick pigeons in separate breeding boxes. The pigeon that had been treated with Trimethoprim seemed to heal the fastest. I immediately started giving it to the other pigeons as well, three weeks in total, then they were cured with Baytrill for another five days and then they seemed to be healed!
POCKET FILLER
'Have you managed that yourself?' the old man asked.
‘Totally', I said. 'Then that vet is a pocket filler', he said, 'You see that you have to stay away from there? I'm going to call now’
After the conversation, which had lasted a very long time, he had calmed down. The vet had told him that if no traces of paratyphoid were found in the droppings, that would not be a certainty.
To be sure, a blood test was needed. You can read that everywhere, by the way.' It turned out that he did not have a pigeon paper. So he turned out to be very economical. No money for a pigeon newspaper and neither for a veterinarian? Hmm.
NECESSITY
Of course, every experienced fancier would have thought of paratyphus. With young dead in the nest, many eggs unfertilized, green manure you can hardly miss. These (and other things) should be part of the basic knowledge of every fancier. I have often argued that the union should give every new member a booklet, containing the most elementary basic concepts that everyone should know.
Now beginners are warmly welcomed and then they have to figure it out for themselves. .
THE VET
By the way, the above reminds me of what I once experienced myself.
Since I hate to take risks I had the pigeons examined a few winters ago when they had been brooding for a few weeks.
No canker, no coccidiosis and no worms, as it turned out.
But… when the young were about ten days old, they died of canker.
Had the vet seen it wrong? Nope.
The trichomons were concealed in the body, as Dr. Lemhaieu taught me afterwards, and that only manifested itself when young were baited. So don't be too quick to shoot the pianist, in this case the vet, if things go wrong.
FINALLY
What is the best medicine against paratyphoid? For years many, including veterinarians, thought Baytril.But that too is outdated.
There are examples of an outbreak shortly after a course of treatment. But what surprised me enormously this year?
With the pigeons of Mr. H there were symptoms like with the old man. He did the only thing you should do when in doubt, have an antibiogram made.
The results made my neck hairs stand on end, as it were.
Baytril was mentioned as the most effective.
Which, I think with my layman's mind, is the core of the problem?
So many different strains of salmonella, which are sensitive to different medications. And that is something for the experts. The fancier must recognize the symptoms in time.
What I want to say in this article is this: Beginners and also 'the common man' should be familiarized. If we lose the common man, we lose pigeon sport.
I argue for a kind of information booklet. Costs maybe 4,000 euros.
Just the value of a feather of what is paid nowadays for a good bird.