Time of Year and medications.

It appears that silly season is upon us once again.
Pm's txts and emails have started to come in.
What should I treat my my birds with prior to breeding.
Baytril, 3 in one tabs and the like.
I think over the last year, I have provided enough information about what I think of medications and the abuse of such things.
My view is no different.
I ask fanciers how do your pigeons look.
Many reply fantastic.
So why medicate
Like I always say, healthy pigeons don't get ill.
Now for many fanciers who treat with certain medications and antibiotics throughout the season will have to continue doing so, the reason being is that there birds do not have a good natural immune system and every time they get ill they have to use medications to fight the illness because the pigeon itself cannot.
This is what I call medication cycling.
A cycle of treatments.
Everytime the birds come to a point in their lives where they are introduced to added stress they become run down and have to be treated with medication, these times are Racing, Moulting, Breeding.
When you medicate your pigeons when breeding, you are in fact introducing this medication cycle to the developing embryo in the egg then this will start the cycle all over again.
Think very carefully about it.

excellant post food for thought

At Last, someone with a brain.

yes agree gaz never treated last year before pairing up and had a good hatch although the birds did receive a canker treatment and were treated for cocci 1 month before pairing and of course pmv vaccine but thats it

lea max wrote:

At Last, someone with a brain.

what do you mean ,not being funny i was against all this treatment sh**e but i had to go with the times as they say,if you do,nt you,ll be left behind and i do believe this to be true,i myself do,nt know of many that win without treatment,i could be wrong on this so correct me if i am.i myself have seen a massive improvement with my birds since i started to either treat or use perventative treatments,do,nt get me wrong i do,nt still do a lot of things like canker every other week ect but i believe you still have to treat and i will do so from now on if i think it will benefit my birds...

Well done Darren.
I'm hoping that this yb will have a far better constitution than last years yb, which has been good.
I do honestly believe that this is the way forward.
The birds on the allotment are the same, the stock birds we gave them all a dose of nazaline and to be honest I have never used it before, but the gunge that came out of them was unreal, I dont know what it contains but it's pretty ruthless.
I think some must have had quite a bit congestion judging by by the debris that was on the back of some of nestboxes, but there hasn't been a sniffle in that stock loft since.
This product I think will be added to list for the future.

i do use stuff ray but they are natural products like strike which will clear up mild bacterial infections also i use a natural product for coli ....and another for resperatory but if i had a more serious problem then i would use a antibiotic but not beytril or any other from that family of drugs as their are hard on the bird and strip it bare but i would use something like furaltadone, beytril last resort for me and if the bird were to go backward again then it would have to be culled ..i think observation is the key and be careful and quarentine any new arrivals for at least 2 weeks jmo and each to his own i would not condemn anyone that treats before pairing thats their choice but it makes me wonder when they do it so close to pairing up ie broad spec antibiotic ,cocci,canker and worms and of course pmv jab its all to much in a short space of time after the moult and alot do it

Gaz b wrote:

Well done Darren.
I'm hoping that this yb will have a far better constitution than last years yb, which has been good.
I do honestly believe that this is the way forward.
The birds on the allotment are the same, the stock birds we gave them all a dose of nazaline and to be honest I have never used it before, but the gunge that came out of them was unreal, I dont know what it contains but it's pretty ruthless.
I think some must have had quite a bit congestion judging by by the debris that was on the back of some of nestboxes, but there hasn't been a sniffle in that stock loft since.
This product I think will be added to list for the future.

gaz i have not used nazaline found it hard to get been using one by travipharma made up of plant extracts but can stain the wattle its called super anti slime...also i am always sprinkleing olbas oil on the deep litter lol

Like I say I havent used used it before, but it certainly did the trick mate.

Well I bred 100 plus young birds in 2012 and for the first year I didnt have 1 sick pigeon, Also I didnt kill 1 sickly or weak youngster and thats a fact. My birds have not had any treatments foir over 18 months, so 3 weeks ago I sent my samples off to belgica de weered vets, The results were totally clear no illness and no treatments needed again, so I wont be treating my pigeons with anything before breeding.

i also send my droppings to belgica de weered vets and they have come back clear for the last 3 times but they told me to give paro stop for 10 day before pairing up my birds whitch i have done as de weered is vets and has been very helpful
All the top flyers go there, but they dont tell you this because they want stay at the top

hi evs ....yes i think the stress of breeding can bring on salmonella then in turn paratyphoid and its underlying and does not show untill the breeding season or even toward the end of breeding ...racing then the moult then breeding its a hard calendar for the birds but last season i only bred from stock and likewise this year and as you know i dont have many stock birds but my view is stock birds should be able to cope and always be healthy if prisoners and not mixed with other birds its all about observation and knowing yer birds and limiting the root causes and staying on top of things with a preventative jmo atb m8

oldstrain wrote:

hi evs ....yes i think the stress of breeding can bring on salmonella then in turn paratyphoid and its underlying and does not show untill the breeding season or even toward the end of breeding ...racing then the moult then breeding its a hard calendar for the birds but last season i only bred from stock and likewise this year and as you know i dont have many stock birds but my view is stock birds should be able to cope and always be healthy if prisoners and not mixed with other birds its all about observation and knowing yer birds and limiting the root causes and staying on top of things with a preventative jmo atb m8

Spot on comment Daz

Thats very interesting that they told you to treat for something anyway considering your birds havent got paratyphoid.? perhaps they just want to sell you some parastop.
I personally cannot see the logic in it, If you havent got an ailment treating for it wont do anything cause they aint got it, and if they pick it up a week later then its not going to protec them?
If I get a bird with any ailment apart from just being off colour as some birds do from time to time, I bin them all.
I have ony ever cured a bird of one eye cold, canker sometimes, If they are sick real sick and for days I kill them. and I recomend it.

Rudderfett wrote:

Thats very interesting that they told you to treat for something anyway considering your birds havent got paratyphoid.? perhaps they just want to sell you some parastop.
I personally cannot see the logic in it, If you havent got an ailment treating for it wont do anything cause they aint got it, and if they pick it up a week later then its not going to protec them?
If I get a bird with any ailment apart from just being off colour as some birds do from time to time, I bin them all.
I have ony ever cured a bird of one eye cold, canker sometimes, If they are sick real sick and for days I kill them. and I recomend it.

agree with this to be honest...none of you lot take an asprin for a headache you may get in 6 hours time, and once its worn off you might get one straight away anyway

Thats what I mean ALEX, spot on mate. I dont think pigeons are any different to humans as far as ailments are concerned. When you are young you always seem to have a sniffle and a cold, just like young pigeons, If fanciers see a pigeon fluffed up a bit or a wattery dropping they march to the cupbaord for a medicine.
I find a nice day followed by a cold wet one will make them go watery and fluffy without any actually being sick. Real sickness is very different and I think your managment, the loft or the pigeons need seeing to if that happens frequenlty.
Just out of interest I have pictures of my young bird loft from 2010 and in the corner of the loft is a red hen, whenever I went into the loft she was sitting alone slightly fluffed up and looking off colour where as all the others looked healthy, the pigeon wasnt sick no lack of apetite or bad droppings but looked sorry for its self.
That bird unmated won 1st club 1st section and 2nd open, in stiff weather, I didnt medicate the bird and its still here, so I dont pay much attention to that sort of thing now unless there are visual symptoms.

What I meant by my my remark was.
Back in the day, when I first started with pigeons, there was non of this medication rubbish.
Have you never actually sat and thought about this vast subject and give it some deep thought.
Yes I agree, there are many fanciers who have won races using medications, one thing if you follow these fanciers carefully through the season, after the season these birds will be sold off, ask yourself why?
We ourselves can create weaknesses in our birds by administering certain medications.
We can also create this environment too.
Look at us humans for instance.
When I was a lad, we never had double glazing, central heating and the like.
On a windy day you could hear the wind whistling through the windows.
If we was to get cold during the day, we put on an extra jersey, at night we put on an extra blanket or a coat on the bed.
But we never woke in a morning feeling horrible, like we do now.
Back then we could tolerate the cold nowadays we cannot.
Because we have created a warm draft free environment, which harbours germs. This the reason why we now have to employ the use of certain disinfectants and bleaches.
Back in the days we would feed a flu with enhanced vitamin c, oranges lemons and the like as this dealt with the flu symptoms.
As stupid as it may sound, maybe we only got the flu in the first place because of a vit c deficiency.
Then we got introduced to antibiotics, the people who lived in the slum areas of the cities never really had a need for these and many were not prescribed them, because they had a much stronger constitution i.e. a better immune system.
The medical profession has now suddenly began to realise this fact as over prescribed medications such as antibiotics have made certain ailments mutate into other forms that are becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics and so are swaying towards more natural remedies to tackle problems.
Take the flu injection, this contains three strains of influenza, in a mild dose of course, to alert our immune system of the the virus, so our natural immune system can recognise it and fight it.
We are being introduced to a mild dose of it, so we can fight it naturally.
Our pigeons must first become ill, so they can build up an immunity to these ailments.
Many fanciers, think that when we give our pigeons natural remedies to help boost their natural immune system, that these are not not working because our birds still look ill for a matter of days.
In reality what is happening the birds themselves are fighting the illness themselves.
So the next time the illness strikes their immune system will deal with it more quickly.

We only have to look at wild pigeons, do they have a problem with fertility?
Do you ever see an ill wood pigeon?

We have to give our birds the right diet, captive birds cannot just live on corn alone, they need grit and minerals, they need irons, such as copper and zinc, they need oil rich foods at certain times of the year, they also need certain other things like electrolytes and acids. Glucose, salts, sugars, bicarbonates. These all have a good positive effect on your birds natural immune system.
So just remember that a little of what can cause your birds harm can also cause your birds to have optimum health.

good post lea

v nive post lea talking alot of sense m8

This is becoming an interesting post.lol
I have been doin a little clearout of bookmarks of my pc and came across this article, I cannot for the life of me remember saving it or reading it, but hats just me.
its a good read on this subject
Check it out
http://www.pipa.be/en/node/74951

Sorry good post Lea, very thought provoking.

just saved that article gaz will have a read later thanx

no probs mate there was section about loose dropping that I found interesting.

some good posts on this subject .

im not always treating for illness`s or treating for prevention, and i do prefer to give natural products ei honey, garlic etc......but i think if my birds did suddenly get ill or get yb sickness, then i wouldnt hesitate in reaching for the nifuramycin as i think its always best to try curing them ASAP and trial and error treating would be wasting time........JMO