UkPigeonRacing

Now as you know towards the end of the old bird season my youngsters were hit with an illness that wiped out nearly half of my team, I had some that didn't seem to be affected and some that suffered quite badly but did recover. Sadly the majority of these birds went by the wayside during training but 2 of these did get at least 1 race and 2 got more including the longest race, now the problem I have is that these birds seem to still have extremely wet/watery droppings. I have just given the whole loft a treatment of 4 in 1 as there is a chance that they could have contracted cocci while they were sick. I have to have a sort out as I have too many birds that don't or can't race, last weekend I reluctantly did move 6 on including 2 that had recovered from injuries but were unable to race again, now my gut tells me that these 4 youngsters need to moved on too but just wanted to hear others opinions.
All the best.

Some birds always have watery droppings, end of day mate has to be your call I would not advise as I am 100% against culling, in my opinion all lives matter and should end when nature decides not any person I know folks will disagree but we all have and are entitled to our opinions

i don't treat sick birds sorry but they have to go

George and Morgan wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 9:06 pm i don't treat sick birds sorry but they have to go

I don't George that would fall under the ''natures call''

I used to be a lot harder than I am now. I do have a few that are just here with not much chance of doing anything. I do find that some birds never fully recover from a serious illness. I think you will find that they will pass by the wayside when pushed on and in a hard race. I don’t like getting rid of birds but if short of space these ones do need sorting out.

Buster121 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 9:01 pm Some birds always have watery droppings, end of day mate has to be your call I would not advise as I am 100% against culling, in my opinion all lives matter and should end when nature decides not any person I know folks will disagree but we all have and are entitled to our opinions

I have to say that I agree with you Buster, I love the birds and would give a home to any but unfortunately due to the lack of distance racing and taking on birds from some of the old Worthing members last year my numbers have just got silly. Unless I stop breeding this is potentially only going to get worse and the health of the loft would inevitably suffer so very reluctantly had to make decision to reduce the numbers. I only have nest boxes for 30 birds and I still have 50

i do treat for going light but that's it

It's a difficult subject.

As you know I have not used any medications in my loft for some years. My own strain have developed strong resistance to canker and cocci and other diseases. Any young bird which isn't strong enough is usually removed while still in the nest. It very rarely happens.

However, I am like Trev, I have introduced some new pigeons in the last couple of years. They have had to adapt and get strong or get out. One, my big Jos Thone young cock bird, has had droppings that are runny and smelly off and on all his life. But he is a highly strung bloke, which might explain it a bit. I have a shed full of babies now, and some of them off the new stock pigeons have lose droppings compared to my old family. They are bred off pigeons which have been treated with medications every year for generations. Without the drugs they have to develop their own immunity. Which they do. The oldest of them are starting to fly strongly, and are fit and well.

It would be easy to give in and use antibiotics to 'fix them up'. But I wont do that. I am not treating a whole team of pigeons because a couple of them are not coping. I use the garlic and apple cider vinegar in the water, which really seems to help them,

I think Trev has the same issues. New pigeons introduced to the shed, breeding young birds without the resistance to the germs in the loft. The answer is simple. Reduce the numbers by removing the ones that are not thriving.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

A good point Murray. I also don’t treat for anything as you know. I have been quite lucky really that with the number of birds that I have coming in each year from different lofts I get very little trouble with health. Whether there would be an underlying problem that I am not aware of as they build up their immunity to my loft I don’t know. But if so I’m sure they would show up in some birds. It may be that these ones won’t stay the course. As far as getting rid of birds, I would get rid of sick birds as I think they can have a detrimental effect on the loft. But ones that are generally healthy but just not good enough I would rather not unless I got really short of space.

I have one which had a broken wing and now just runs around with them when they are in the garden. I have old pigeons which i justify keeping because they are good foster parents. We can find a reason for keeping just about every pigeon.
Which is why we will never be champion racers.
The top flyers are always looking for a reason to remove a pigeon if it has a weakness or is not good enough.
I will never be a top flyer. I am too soft.