treatment or no treatment

whats your thoughts on this , me my self dont race every week but i like to keep them as healthy
as i can with out the pills and potions don,t get me wrong if there ill i will treat if i have to .
but do you think you can compeat and do well with out treatment , i have in the past gave them nothing at all
all season when they were on W/H and i had one of the best seasons ever with only 9 cocks .

my answer to this is no dont think you can compete without treatment wish you could

ian wrote:

my answer to this is no dont think you can compete without treatment wish you could

have you tried giving them nothing , i have like i said when i raced in wakefield with 9 cocks i went from being bottom or near the bottom to getting 2 first and a 2nd fed from falaise and 6th south yorkshire amal 8,000 birds and nearly every race was no more than a few minutes behind the winners in a very strong club they got no treatments what so ever , but times change but have they change for the better , i think not .

yes i have tried this and got no results , nowadays theres a lot of illnesses going around through the race season so you must treat unfortunately this is due to ourselves and too much treatment not letting them build up there natural ammunity, but unfortunately thats the way it is now

do any of you think yb sickness is brought about by yb being on the dark...?

no definately not

well ive read that some do think it is, and from my own experiencew im not convinced it isnt.............as you know ive had pigeons for to breeding sesons before the 2010 season and both times ive had young birds they have never had yb sickness symptums, this year i put them on the dark for the first time and they did get the symptums.......ive been told that they are sick when you open up on a morning if they have it and its because they havnt digested the food properly, also under stress.

any more thoughts anyone.....?

Yes it does help in this matter as the stress the youngbirds are placed under now is far higher than 30 years ago

I would say if your pigeons have a good immuan system then don't spoil it by giving them this and that try and keep things as natural as possible and only treat when you have to

how do you now if your pigeons have a good immune system please tell me don

Over a period of time Ian if you let nature take care of it's self, pigeons will develop there own immune system, by letting the inside fight most germs and by this i mean not giving them this and that at the first sign of anything wrong with your birds

Then get the droppings checked by a vet every 12 months this way you can tell if your pigeons immune system is good

By giving them medicine for things the body then relices on medicine as the immune system has not built up it's own defence's

Will say Ian it is a fine line and yes sometimes you have to use a medicine but the lesser the better

you will get nowwhere in raceing by not treating

I understand were you are coming from but less medicine is better in the end, the less medicine used the more money you have for more beer

For me the less medicine the better i think and if you have to use medicine then use it in small amounts

the trouble with this is everyone else is medicating , so your left behind frustrated and not timing in

would just like to add my thoughts to this subject, i aggreee with the point that ian is making regarding healthy birds.....i would say that if the birds are not 100% healthy they will do nothing, but whats the best thing to do ? treat as a preventative or wait till they get something? i know of fanciers who treat for something every two or three weeks to make sure the pigeons havnt picked anything up out of the baskets........

but then i also aggree with don in saying too much antibiotics is not good, and treating unnecessaryly shouldnt be done, they do need to build up their own emune system and the only way to do this is for them to fight a mild attack themselves without medicines, therefor breeding future birds which have built up an emunity to it.......

i remember when we got our dog, he had demadetic mange which there is no cure....this is due to having a weak/low emune system and the vet told us to feed him dirty tripe which is full of germs etc and this would make his own emune system fight it and build it up naturally........

just my thoughts anyway.

theres treating and theres treating iam not on about antibiotics we all now we only use when necessary, iam on about canker treatments and cocci , worms ect,

i would treat for these as a preventative before pairing up, and also during the season as they pick alsorts up in the basket as you know......i think i would treat as a preventative every 3 or 4 races.....

yes david you have to do this if you want to win races

i think the birds need to be 100% healthy ian and if they are not i cant see them winning..........i read today of use of eye drops after each race to stop infection caused from fighting in the baskets.........its a constant battle to keep them healthy i think as some fanciers will send their birds with desease and not bother or say anything about it to other members........

unfortunately people do send birds which are ill these are the people who dont treat

read about some stuff called nasaline ? think it was something like this and they said the amount of s**t that comes out of the bird is unbeleivable.....its given in the nostrils, have you heard of it or used it ?

yes david have used this and quite recently

Were cocci and worms are your treatments must say i treated myself but only on a mild form just before pairing up and that was it

In the early 90's, did use a yellow colour granuals which i rubed in the top of the beak were the clef curtains to the nostrols was

would leave the birds in the basket and within seconds would hear them like sneeze and by the time i had to take them out of the basket, yellow jelly like would be coming from there wattles, would then use cotton buds to remove this yellow jelly like and also would squeeze the wattle nostrils together which moves the jelly from the nostril, but doing this you would have to open the beak and remove the jelly from the clef curtain area with a cotton bud

But never know the name of the product but it help clean the nostrils out

doesnt sound nice for the birds wouldnt use it on mine