Young bird sickness.

[Trev]

Can i just ask other members, looking back over the years. Can anyone remember any kind of sickness with young birds? Before the 80s shall we say.

No Devo, I don't remember having any kind of sickness in my youngsters back in the 80s.
However speaking from my own experience, I also never had as many pigeons back then and was a lot more selective over which birds I bred from, my whole youngbird team was usually made up of babies from not more than about 6 pairs of pigeons. Taking two rounds from each pair giving me around 24 youngsters, they were weaned into a completely seperate loft from my old birds.
These days, since starting up again, I have far too many birds, young and old all run together. I have been gifted a lot of birds from various sources so felt the need to keep babies from far too many different pairings in my efforts to develop a team, this has led to me keeping birds which if I'm honest I should never have bred and a very overcrowded shed. Although I don't really know what causes YBS, and as you have all said, I'm sure there are a lot of different reasons, I'm convinced that it is stress and overcrowding that is the trigger in my birds. At the moment my babies are doing ok but I'm always on tender hooks waiting to be hit, as over the past few years I have been hit and have lost birds due to it.
I have however found that by vaccinating my babies for PMV at weaning age has definitely made a difference, probably another coincidence but something that I will continue to do.
Again, just my opinion.

[Devo1956]

Can i just ask other members, looking back over the years. Can anyone remember any kind of sickness with young birds? Before the 80s shall we say.

No Devo, I don't remember having any kind of sickness in my youngsters back in the 80s.
However speaking from my own experience, I also never had as many pigeons back then and was a lot more selective over which birds I bred from, my whole youngbird team was usually made up of babies from not more than about 6 pairs of pigeons. Taking two rounds from each pair giving me around 24 youngsters, they were weaned into a completely seperate loft from my old birds.
These days, since starting up again, I have far too many birds, young and old all run together. I have been gifted a lot of birds from various sources so felt the need to keep babies from far too many different pairings in my efforts to develop a team, this has led to me keeping birds which if I'm honest I should never have bred and a very overcrowded shed. Although I don't really know what causes YBS, and as you have all said, I'm sure there are a lot of different reasons, I'm convinced that it is stress and overcrowding that is the trigger in my birds. At the moment my babies are doing ok but I'm always on tender hooks waiting to be hit, as over the past few years I have been hit and have lost birds due to it.
I have however found that by vaccinating my babies for PMV at weaning age has definitely made a difference, probably another coincidence but something that I will continue to do.
Again, just my opinion.

Thanks for your reply Trev, good feedback.

[Murray]

I've been told that vaccinating for PMV is good for two reasons. first, obviously it can protect them against PMV, and you don't want that, no you don't.
Second, I have been told that it gives the immune system a wake up, and the birds can really improve afterwards. I am only going on what i have been told, but some people swear it is true.

[Trev]

I've been told that vaccinating for PMV is good for two reasons. first, obviously it can protect them against PMV, and you don't want that, no you don't.
Second, I have been told that it gives the immune system a wake up, and the birds can really improve afterwards. I am only going on what i have been told, but some people swear it is true.

That's interesting, thanks for that Muzza. I started doing it two years ago when I was losing two or three babies a day, I went to see our club chairman for advice as I was desperately trying to find a solution before I lost my whole team. He gave me some medication that he thought might help, but also suggested that I vaccinated them all as it was something he did and found helped. It certainly stemmed the spread so I've done it since.

[Andy]

I've been told that vaccinating for PMV is good for two reasons. first, obviously it can protect them against PMV, and you don't want that, no you don't.
Second, I have been told that it gives the immune system a wake up, and the birds can really improve afterwards. I am only going on what i have been told, but some people swear it is true.

It seems to be early in the year and certainly can’t be attributed to training or racing youngsters, or mixing birds from different lofts, but as I said half our members are having real trouble with it over the past week. Unfortunately after what I said about mine I had 3 die today. Unlike usual YBS though I have had no birds actually being sick. Just ok one minute and dead the next.

[Murray]

That's not good! No wet droppings or anything? Just dropping dead.
That doesn't sound like PMV or Rota Virus or E Coli.
I have no idea, but I hope it's just a few.

[Devo1956]

I've been told that vaccinating for PMV is good for two reasons. first, obviously it can protect them against PMV, and you don't want that, no you don't.
Second, I have been told that it gives the immune system a wake up, and the birds can really improve afterwards. I am only going on what i have been told, but some people swear it is true.

It seems to be early in the year and certainly can’t be attributed to training or racing youngsters, or mixing birds from different lofts, but as I said half our members are having real trouble with it over the past week. Unfortunately after what I said about mine I had 3 die today. Unlike usual YBS though I have had no birds actually being sick. Just ok one minute and dead the next.

The 3 birds that died Andy, was there any signs pointing towards anything.?

[Andy]

I've been told that vaccinating for PMV is good for two reasons. first, obviously it can protect them against PMV, and you don't want that, no you don't.
Second, I have been told that it gives the immune system a wake up, and the birds can really improve afterwards. I am only going on what i have been told, but some people swear it is true.

It seems to be early in the year and certainly can’t be attributed to training or racing youngsters, or mixing birds from different lofts, but as I said half our members are having real trouble with it over the past week. Unfortunately after what I said about mine I had 3 die today. Unlike usual YBS though I have had no birds actually being sick. Just ok one minute and dead the next.

The 3 birds that died Andy, was there any signs pointing towards anything.?

These are youngsters that are in with a dozen late breds. One had looked a bit off colour for a couple of days towards the end of last week. No being sick but droppings not very good. Friday night at the club it sounded like half the members had got YBS during that week. Views were very different. Some were having pigeons being sick, some with birds very thirsty, and a few with birds dropping dead. Responses were quite different. Some had vaccinated their young birds when weaned, some hadn’t. One very good fancier had jabbed his 4 times with different things. But all still got it. Most have treated their sick birds but the odd ones haven’t. Doesn’t seem to have made much difference to who’s losing birds how they have been treated either before or during the sickness.
Mine had been exercising well up until Friday morning when none wanted to come out and didn’t really want any food. The droppings weren’t very good at all but nothing was actually being sick. I don’t let anything out Friday afternoon or Saturday. Saturday evening when I got home from the club I checked them. The one that hadn’t been very good was still looking poorly and another one was starting to look bad. Sunday morning the second one was on the floor and died within the hour. The first one also died shortly after and a third wasn’t looking very good. By the afternoon this one too was dead. Several of the others weren’t looking great. I dreaded going in the loft this morning fearing what I might find. But when opening the door they looked a fair bit better. The droppings were a lot better and when let out they all had a good fly. When getting them in they were keen to eat. Hoping I’m not speaking too soon but they seem to be much better. They have had nothing in the way of treatment for anything.

[Devo1956]

It seems to be early in the year and certainly can’t be attributed to training or racing youngsters, or mixing birds from different lofts, but as I said half our members are having real trouble with it over the past week. Unfortunately after what I said about mine I had 3 die today. Unlike usual YBS though I have had no birds actually being sick. Just ok one minute and dead the next.

The 3 birds that died Andy, was there any signs pointing towards anything.?

These are youngsters that are in with a dozen late breds. One had looked a bit off colour for a couple of days towards the end of last week. No being sick but droppings not very good. Friday night at the club it sounded like half the members had got YBS during that week. Views were very different. Some were having pigeons being sick, some with birds very thirsty, and a few with birds dropping dead. Responses were quite different. Some had vaccinated their young birds when weaned, some hadn’t. One very good fancier had jabbed his 4 times with different things. But all still got it. Most have treated their sick birds but the odd ones haven’t. Doesn’t seem to have made much difference to who’s losing birds how they have been treated either before or during the sickness.
Mine had been exercising well up until Friday morning when none wanted to come out and didn’t really want any food. The droppings weren’t very good at all but nothing was actually being sick. I don’t let anything out Friday afternoon or Saturday. Saturday evening when I got home from the club I checked them. The one that hadn’t been very good was still looking poorly and another one was starting to look bad. Sunday morning the second one was on the floor and died within the hour. The first one also died shortly after and a third wasn’t looking very good. By the afternoon this one too was dead. Several of the others weren’t looking great. I dreaded going in the loft this morning fearing what I might find. But when opening the door they looked a fair bit better. The droppings were a lot better and when let out they all had a good fly. When getting them in they were keen to eat. Hoping I’m not speaking too soon but they seem to be much better. They have had nothing in the way of treatment for anything.

So all young birds have not been together on training toss? all individual lofts with same problems. But some have jabbed their birds some not, looking at the birds with the problems. Was they just hunched up wings dropping, droppings a bile effect or yellowish. It seems so strange that it was all different lofts In the area, but all had different management of the birds. Did anyone send off any samples to a vet Andy, it would be good to know the outcome.

[Andy]

No mate, I don’t think anyone has even considered training any youngsters yet. Yes all individual lofts. The ones I had were hunched up, no wings dropping and droppings were watery and green. As said none of mine were actually sick but others had birds being sick. I think this is airborne. I say YBS as the late breds in the same section have shown no sign of sickness. However it was reported last week that there had been an outbreak of a suspected mutation of YBS in yearlings down Plymouth way. From what I gather these were in late breds that had been raced in their winter program of 4 or 5 races. These birds wouldn’t actually be yearlings but have now been racing as old birds on the same transporter as ours. So whether our old birds have brought something back or not who knows. As far as I know nobody had any vet tests done.
I have checked the loft again tonight and all looks well. Really strange that it seemed to hit them over a 48 hours period in which the 3 died within just 6 hours but then gone. Hopefully those left have now a good immunity to it and having had it so early in the year I would hope to have no trouble when the young bird training and racing starts. It will be interesting to see how others that use treatments regularly faired.