The eight most common health problems with our pigeons are:

Paratyphoid, Paramyxovirus, Canker, Cocci, Worms, Adeno-Coli Syndrome, Ornithosis and Candida.

1. PARATHYPHOID (Salmonella)

Paratyphoid can be caused by un-sanitary conditions and the contamination of feed by rodents. It also can occur when introducing new pigeons into the loft, without checking first if they are healthy. Before putting new pigeons into the loft, isolate and observe them for 5 days and put them on a preventive medication.

Symptoms of Paratyphoid:
Loss of condition and weight.
Green slimy droppings.
Swelling of the leg and wing joints.
Limping
Infertile Eggs.
Twisted neck (seldom)
One eye blindness (seldom)

Products for Prevention and Cure:
Furaltadone & Colistine 5% (DAC)
Trimethoprim ? Sulfa (DAC)
Parastop (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Parastop (Pantex)
Pantrim (Pantex)
Para-Mix 1 (Travipharma)
Sal-Bac Vaccine (Bio-Mune)

2. PARAMYXOVIRUS (PMV)

To prevent Paramyxovirus from coming into your loft, it is recommended that all birds are vaccinated at least once a year. Young birds should be vaccinated at 4 to 8 weeks of age, but no later then 4 weeks before the young bird race season. Re-vaccinate all birds 4 weeks before the breeding season. Once a pigeon has Paramyxovirus, there is very little you can do, vaccinating at this point will not do any good. We recommend that those pigeons that have the disease are treated with La-Sota, that has shown some success. This can be done individually by putting a drop in each eye for three days, or putting it in the drinking water for flock treatment.

Symptoms of Paramyxovirus:
Loss of weight
Watery green slimy droppings.
Parastop (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Twisting of neck and head

Products for prevention or cure:
PMV1 Vaccine (Lohmann Animal Health)
LaSota (Lohmann Animal Health)
*NOTE: If a visible Paramyxovirus problem occurs, you may try the following remedy. This was recommended by several of the leading pigeon veterinarians in Holland and Belgium. Vaccinate the effected pigeon 3 x in one week, with PMV-1 killed virus vaccine, 0.5 cc per shot in the neck, on Sunday, Wednesday and Sunday. After treatment, keep pigeon isolated for an additional week, to make sure all symptoms are gone. Remember, that the bird will always remain a carrier.

3. CANKER (Trichomoniasis)

A yellow cheesy substance, generally seen in the mouth, however 10% of Canker is external, while 90% is internal. Breaks out at any age, also in youngsters still in the nest. It is caused by a flagellate, living on the mucous membranes of the throat and the crop.

Symptoms of Canker:
Loss of appetite
Problem digesting

Products for Cure:
Ronidazole (Ridzol)(DAC)
Metronidazole (Flagyl) (DAC)
B.S. (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Ronidazole 10% (Pantex)
Ronidazole 40 (Pantex)
5% Cure (Travipharma)

4. COCCI (Coccidiosis)

This problem can be caused by unsanitary conditions in the loft and letting your pigeons go picking around on the ground.

Symptoms of Cocci:
Loss of weight.
Slimy dark green droppings
Lethargic
Poor flying
Thirsty

Products for Cure:
Multi-Mix (Global)
Dacoxine 4 in 1 (DAC)
Trimethoprim/Sulfa (DAC)
Coccimix (Pantex)
Cocci-Geel (Pantex)
Cocci-Mix 1 (Travipharma)

5. WORMS (Hair, Round & Tape Worms)

Cause generally are un-sanitary loft conditions or letting the pigeons, pick around on the ground. They will maintain appetite, as the worms consume most nutrition in the pigeons system.

Symptoms of Worms
Loss of Condition
Loss of Weight
Bad dropping

Products for Cure:
Combi-Worm (All worms) (Global)
Belga-Wormac (Hair & Roundworm)
Wormmix (Hair & Roundworms) (DAC)
Worm-Ex (Hair & Roundworms) (Pantex)

6. ORNITHOSIS

Over 50% of young birds have problems with the Ornithosis complex. Loss of desire to fly, loss of pigeons in the races and poor results, both with old and young birds.

Symptoms of Ornithosis:
Lack of condition
Nasal secretions
Decreased desire to fly
Scratching the head and beak
Swollen eye lids & wet eyes.
Sneezing, rattling and coughing
Discolored wattles
Slime in the throat

Products for Cure:
Respiratory Plus (Global)
1 + 1 Cure (DAC)
Spiradac (DAC)
Tylosine (DAC)
Orni-Special (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Ornithosis 3 (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Ornimix W.S.P. (Pantex)
Ornimix DS (Pantex)

7. ADENO-COLI SYNDROM

In the last 10 years, this has been the biggest problem in young birds from 6-9 months in age. Up to 70% can be infected and show the symptoms. The disease is a combination of an Adeno-Virus, which opens the way for the suddenly aggressive E-Coli bacteria, often a Circo Virus is also involved. The same symptoms can be seen in Paramyxovirus, however in that case the pigeons drink more and may have some central nervous problem, like twisting of the head. Although there is no known cure for Adeno and Circo Virus. Several of the products shown below, have proven somewhat effective.

Symptoms of Adeno-Coli Syndrom:
Decreased appetite
Clear watery droppings with small fecal
matter in cent
Vomiting
Rapid loss of weight.
Dying in matter of days.
Although the below listed problem is not common, it can occur when certain condition are right and should not be overlooked, as it is generally done

Products for Cure:
Belg-Amco (Belgica-DeWeerd)
4 in 1 Mix (Belgica-DeWeerd)
Dacoxine 4 in 1 (DAC)
To prevent dehydration that the 4 in 1
is mixed with the following product.
Belgasol (Belgica-DeWeerd)

8. CANDIDA

When problems occur in the loft, the first thing a fancier looks for is signs of the more common problems like Canker, Cocci, Worms, Paratyphoid, Respiratory, Ornithosis Complex, Adeno Virus or E-Coli. Many will quickly grab for a medication and do what I call ?blind? medicating for these diseases in a very short time. This can destroy the healthy intestinal good gut bacteria increasing the chance for bad germs to take hold. This can cause a condition named Candida, which is a mould and yeast infection of the crop and the intestines.

Symptons of Candida:
No desire to fly
Poor performance in the races.
Losses in Training and Races.

Products for Cure:
Glostatin (Global)

non of these are very nice this is why iam a great beleiver of treatment good info mate

most of these you can keep on top of with just good all round house keeping
and knowing what to look for , the first thing i look at when i enter the loft is the droppings
they can tell you a lot about your birds but if i have to treat i will but its very rare i do .

excellent piece of info rene, interesting reading................ive just finished treating for cocci so now on three days of honey before the canker treatment, when ive paired up i`ll treat for worms.

as ian says, not very nice to see..........and im glad im treating mine as a preventative.

DAVID wrote:

excellent piece of info rene, interesting reading................ive just finished treating for cocci so now on three days of honey before the canker treatment, when ive paired up i`ll treat for worms.

as ian says, not very nice to see..........and im glad im treating mine as a preventative.

david do you get the droppings tested first before treating ??

hi kev, no i dont.............treated for all three a couple of years ago before pairing and the birds and ybs were spot on, last year(2010) i didnt treat and in my opinion the ybs were not as good and they got some sort of digestive infection which i thought was yb sickness...........

i just thought it best to treat this year as a preventative as you never know what sort of health other members of the clubs birds are in when they are all in the baskets togeather.

when your birds have been sitting around the lofts its best to do all three fair enough when racing get the tested but why throw money away you know they will have something even if its a small amount

mark/lightening was saying about when he gets all the test birds, he is going to cocci them as they will all have different levels of cocci........so this has stuck in my mind as it seems they all have different levels which is always there.

yes they do david also have some level of canker aswell we treat to keep the count down only not to get rid

yes, they say canker is always present and comes out in times of stress (so they say) and also different types of canker too...???

this is why we treat when or before pairing as its stressful

yes they will have a little amount of cocci inside them but put under stress will flare up
i think the biggest bug bare is canker most flyers these days when racing treat every 4-5 weeks
as i don,t race every week mine seem to be fine but ive started to have there droppings tested
at least once a year .

i go 3-4 times a season for a dropping test mainly a few weeks before a national

even tho i think its best to treat as a preventative i dont like treating willy nilly, i suppose every so often it would be wise to test the droppings just to keep a proper check on their health..........

as we all say, in the race/training baskets some will enter pigeons which look ill so we need to look after our own birds welfare and try to keep them as healthy as possible i should think.....

also david after a holdover i always put some antibiotics in the drinker with multivits on return just in case, your only as clean as the dirtiest member in your club

mmmmmm, and some of ours are filthy........

just think david every race you birds are with theirs

dont want to say too much on open...............

ian wrote:

just think david every race you birds are with theirs

i tell you what ian , ive put through loads of big name flyers birds through in the national marking and some times i would not even send them on a training flight there in such a bad way . one flyer a big name flyer down here in the SW sent one and i put it through i was gob smacked it had a big gash on it belly just starting to scab over
i wasn,t going to put it through but i got told to put it in , i reported him but nothing got done .

yes have seen this myself with some of the top top flyers but what would happen if it was you bet they would stop you , not that we would send birds like this

ian wrote:

yes have seen this myself with some of the top top flyers but what would happen if it was you bet they would stop you , not that we would send birds like this

i wount have the nerve to do it and be so crule ,there motto is if its in the loft its goes .

yes i know exactly what your on about they have to win no matter what

ive seen some just throw their birds in the basket, and send trainers/racers with a broken leg........i couldnt do that, maybe too soft some would say but i dont think its right.

Don't know how someone could send one like that David

me neither alex, but some think they either know best or just dont give a fooook.