1st round of youngsters

[Andy]

The only illness that worries me in the pigeons is canker. They don't recover from it once it is acute. They have to be treated.
Cocci, leave them alone, keep them warm and fed, they recover. Salmonella, or paratyphoid, if they are strong they often recover.
I agree with Devo, things to help promote health are a great help. I have tried all sorts of herbs and teas over the years, now I stick to freshly crushed garlic and apple cider vinegar. Like all natural health products it must be used often. Unlike prescription medications they have no residual effect.

I am giving them garlic and a bit of cider vinegar. I’m with you. The best will survive and be better for it. I would hate to have pigeons propped up by treatments. Even when I’ve has PMV I never treated for anything. I never lost any of my better birds. The ones that didn’t survive I already had doubts about.

[Andy]

The only illness that worries me in the pigeons is canker. They don't recover from it once it is acute. They have to be treated.
Cocci, leave them alone, keep them warm and fed, they recover. Salmonella, or paratyphoid, if they are strong they often recover.
I agree with Devo, things to help promote health are a great help. I have tried all sorts of herbs and teas over the years, now I stick to freshly crushed garlic and apple cider vinegar. Like all natural health products it must be used often. Unlike prescription medications they have no residual effect.

To be honest Murray, i have always worked on prevention. I think when you are dealing with athletes, its important to keep them in tune. Then when racing comes up fine tune them, no difference to a formula 1 car.

The only thing I would say against that Devo is how can you prevent sickness? You wouldn’t get any benefit from treating for something they haven’t got. The best way of prevention is just to keep a clean loft. I was an athlete as far as being a swimmer and water polo player and I have never taken any treatments for anything. I still don’t take anything prescribed if I’m sick now.

[Devo1956]

The only illness that worries me in the pigeons is canker. They don't recover from it once it is acute. They have to be treated.
Cocci, leave them alone, keep them warm and fed, they recover. Salmonella, or paratyphoid, if they are strong they often recover.
I agree with Devo, things to help promote health are a great help. I have tried all sorts of herbs and teas over the years, now I stick to freshly crushed garlic and apple cider vinegar. Like all natural health products it must be used often. Unlike prescription medications they have no residual effect.

To be honest Murray, i have always worked on prevention. I think when you are dealing with athletes, its important to keep them in tune. Then when racing comes up fine tune them, no difference to a formula 1 car.

The only thing I would say against that Devo is how can you prevent sickness? You wouldn’t get any benefit from treating for something they haven’t got. The best way of prevention is just to keep a clean loft. I was an athlete as far as being a swimmer and water polo player and I have never taken any treatments for anything. I still don’t take anything prescribed if I’m sick now.

Yes i understand what you mean Andy, but there are different ways in Prevention. And you can gain this with natural products.

[Murray]

Of course one of the biggest lies in the marketing world, which specialises in lies, is the word ...Natural!
The word has been made to mean things that are good, friendly, positive. If it's natural, it is automatically good for you. That's the lie.
In fact 'natural' means things that occur in nature. Things like rabies and diptheria and leprosy and TB and cancer and death.

[Andy]

To be honest Murray, i have always worked on prevention. I think when you are dealing with athletes, its important to keep them in tune. Then when racing comes up fine tune them, no difference to a formula 1 car.

The only thing I would say against that Devo is how can you prevent sickness? You wouldn’t get any benefit from treating for something they haven’t got. The best way of prevention is just to keep a clean loft. I was an athlete as far as being a swimmer and water polo player and I have never taken any treatments for anything. I still don’t take anything prescribed if I’m sick now.

Yes i understand what you mean Andy, but there are different ways in Prevention. And you can gain this with natural products.

Even if preventative measures are used, in what ever form, pigeons are going to be exposed to many different forms of disease over their lifetime. This is when the fancier plays their part. You could treat with anything you can lay your hands on when first noticed but then your treating for things they don’t have, both being costly and a waste of time. You could have tests done to find out what is effecting them and then treat for that. That again takes time to get the results back before treating and again can be costly. I also think that both these ways although may clear up the problem it can come at a hidden cost in that it may make inferior pigeons look well. These could then be bred from or be carriers of the disease. I prefer to let things run their course and have the best survive.
The other thing for us as fanciers is to recognise when a pigeon isn’t right. My way is then to not separate them from the flock but to give them time to recover. This may take a bit of time but if they are good pigeons they will recover. I think this is the problem with many losses during the racing season. Pigeons pick up whatever from the race basket and may then not be right. Given time, maybe just a week or two off, they will be back to full health. Too often pigeons aren’t given time to recover, sent racing again before being right and ultimately put in a bad performance or are lost. I do think this does happen in OLR where there is a need to push the birds on regardless. If mine missed a few races or even the rest of the season so be it. But if you have a team of strong pigeons not propped up by treatments this would rarely happen.

[Andy]

I handled a few of the youngsters this evening. I must say that I am very pleased with them. They are growing nicely and have a good amount of weight on them. They handle really well. They are very friendly and are all around my feet while cleaning them out. Some are now up in the box perches but a few still prefer the bit of straw I have put down in the corner lol.

[Andy]

The tails look a bit of a mess but that’s because they were still a bit wet from their bath.

[Devo1956]

That good base of straw, will keep them warm mate.

[Murray]

All snuggled up together on the straw, that's great

[Murray]

The only thing I would say against that Devo is how can you prevent sickness? You wouldn’t get any benefit from treating for something they haven’t got. The best way of prevention is just to keep a clean loft. I was an athlete as far as being a swimmer and water polo player and I have never taken any treatments for anything. I still don’t take anything prescribed if I’m sick now.

Yes i understand what you mean Andy, but there are different ways in Prevention. And you can gain this with natural products.

Even if preventative measures are used, in what ever form, pigeons are going to be exposed to many different forms of disease over their lifetime. This is when the fancier plays their part. You could treat with anything you can lay your hands on when first noticed but then your treating for things they don’t have, both being costly and a waste of time. You could have tests done to find out what is effecting them and then treat for that. That again takes time to get the results back before treating and again can be costly. I also think that both these ways although may clear up the problem it can come at a hidden cost in that it may make inferior pigeons look well. These could then be bred from or be carriers of the disease. I prefer to let things run their course and have the best survive.
The other thing for us as fanciers is to recognise when a pigeon isn’t right. My way is then to not separate them from the flock but to give them time to recover. This may take a bit of time but if they are good pigeons they will recover. I think this is the problem with many losses during the racing season. Pigeons pick up whatever from the race basket and may then not be right. Given time, maybe just a week or two off, they will be back to full health. Too often pigeons aren’t given time to recover, sent racing again before being right and ultimately put in a bad performance or are lost. I do think this does happen in OLR where there is a need to push the birds on regardless. If mine missed a few races or even the rest of the season so be it. But if you have a team of strong pigeons not propped up by treatments this would rarely happen.

Well put Andy,
You can put pigeons that are in top health in the race hamper, after a couple of nights in with birds that are sick and shouldn't even be there they come home with who knows what.
Dosing your entire team because one has come home with green watery droppings or is all fluffed up is counter productive. You are just risking knocking the whole lot out of form. I agree that the pigeon needs rest and time to recover.