**KAZ**

Avian Gastric Yeast A new name for an old complaint Megabacteria – Megabacterisis are a common cause of mortality in exhibition Budgerigars. This can be difficult to distinguish against Streptococcus as both diseases have similar symptoms and a microscopic examination of the birds faeces will be needed to confirm which disease the bird is carrying. The name mega implies something very large and then add on bacteria , large yes because the cigar shaped organisms are almost twenty times the size of most common bacteria but new evidence suggest it is a fungus and not a bacteria as first thought. As a result of these new findings it was renamed and called Avian Gastric Yeast. Many of us will have lost birds over the years due to “going light” a term referred to by many aviculturists when birds waste away. There are many diseases that share the “going light” symptom and we will address these later. Megabacteria or AGY as they are now called are found in the digestive tract in the glandular stomach and the juncional zone between the glandular stomach and the gizzard. The transmission is thought to be by oral ingestion of the infected faeces. I personally would never rule out contaminated water fountains as a means of transferring this infection also. The symptoms of AGY are “going light” - chronic wasting, fluffed up, vomiting, prominent keel bone, increased hunger, large droppings and a pasted vent. Secondary changes can also occur in the liver as the bird becomes anorexic. The infected birds will appear to be eating continuously but all they are doing is grinding seed down into a dust, check your seed containers for dust if you suspect AGY in your stock. Impaired immunity inflicted by stress or other diseases will form an outbreak of AGY in your stud. Infection is widespread and it is assumed that this is due to the purchasing of infected birds or carriers. I am certain there are not many budgerigar fanciers that have not heard of Megabacteria I just hope they have never experience the disease. How can we be sure we do not have any AGY carriers in our bird rooms? Treatment is possible but I personally have had no success. I was using Megabac – S as per the maker’s instructions and I found I could stabilise the birds but they soon reverted back to their chronic illness. Megabac-S" amphotericin powder is given at the rate of 250mg per 50ml of water for ten days. Birds must consume 4ml per 100g of body weight a day to get a correct dose. Some birds fail to drink sufficient of the treated water via a water fountain so I would recommend using a crop tube to get the correct dosage. The use of this formulation in drinking water has been shown to reduce incidence but not eliminate the disease. Problems can occur with treatment as some drug have poor systemic uptake and many birds are unable to recover clinically due to the proventricular damage. The use of amphotericin in the water does reduce incidence but is unlikely to eliminate AGY. Some wise words from Brian Stockdale on the use of F10SC avian disinfectant – For those of you with an AGY problem wishing to try F10SC, the medication regime is 1ml in 1 litre of water given for 3 consecutive days once weekly. Where there is an endemic problem, using F10SC pre-pairing up (perhaps for 6 weeks and at least a month clear of egg-laying), to reduce the overall levels within the stud may be sensible. Don’t use (any medication) while there are young in the nest as the parent birds will potentially concentrate the product and feed a potentially harmful level to the chicks. A word of warning, don’t use F10SC or any other medicinal product purely on a whim. If you don’t have a problem don’t be putting chemicals of any description into your birds, rather encourage a healthy gut flora population and promote a strong immune system with good husbandry and sound nutrition. Many thanks to Brian Stockdale for giving me permission to print his article which can be viewed in full on my web site...............Barrie Shutt

The deathly white ill chick I gave the triple c to continues to thrive having regained full colour now, reinforcing my original thinking its due to infection of some sort.

Gotta agree with you there Macka...........I swear by triple c..its brilliant and everyone should have it in their medicine cabinet...many a time its brought a near dead bird back from the brink of death overnight and the bird suddenly looking like nothing was wrong with it the next day. I love the stuff

I had a pasty white as white chick in nestbox a few days ago........it looked so bad I expected it to die. Nothing ventured nothing gained .......it was suggested I feed it a drop of olive oil with some turbosole. I didnt have olive oil or turbosole. BUT I did have TRIPLE C which I find is brilliant. So the chick got fed a drop of water with triple c in it by beak. All went well. Expected it dead the next day just the same. Tonight ( 2 days later ) its pink and healthy

We grow it too and sunflowers......we feed it green. They seem to enjoy it more that way.

Female skyblue opaline dominant pied

Skyblue opaline dominant pied ..........looks female

Hi Tinka Please read this http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=22446 and use this method...it will help a lot right now.

Bumping topic for an interesting read

Who is JM ?

No.........he is coming amongst a stud I birds I have bought from a breeder getting out of show budgies. I am told he has bred some ripper spangles. If a melanistic pops up here and there it will be by accident not me trying to breed any.

Sorry to hear this

Mite infection re the feet symptoms...... the other symptoms could be canker or megabacteria...................Needs vet check.

I doubt he's a stargazer. You said he isnt eating or drinking. Feel his crop ....is there anything in there ? Can you feel a sharp keelbone ( keelbone runs vertically down his chest )...............if so its a serious weight loss and the actions you have described sound like a very weak and possibly dying budgie. Urgent crop feeding needed and urgent vet care.

My melanistic.......... arriving soon

Vitamin D: A Sick Budgie Breakthrough The world’s most popular pet is the Australian budgerigar. It’s kept in captivity more than any other pet but unfortunately they can become sick & eventually die. There has been a major breakthrough which has shown that Vitamin D3 via sunlight eliminates these problems. Don Burke’s article about these breakthroughs are below: SICK BUDGIE BREAKTHROUGH For many years budgie breeders have had awful disease problems. Many breeders have encountered disease outbreaks that almost destroyed their whole flock. Many times, even in ‘Budgerigar World’, you hear of breeders despairing and reluctant to continue breeding our precious little birds. The list of diseases and problems is truly awful: Viral diseases that cause feather loss in adult birds (flightless and tailless wonders) and French moult. A debilitating disease first called megabacteria but which now is avian gastric yeast. Chronic runny noses and sneezing Constantly infected eyes Rampant infertility Coccidiosis On top of that, many birds just never seem well. Many sit on the aviary floor all day. The list goes on and on. You hear from many excellent breeders that antibiotics and general bird medicines are of little help. Many say that taking your birds to the vet is a waste of time and money. I have written previously that auctions, and shows like the Nationals in Australia are partly to blame. Intimately mixing birds from many breeders from all over the country (and the world) spreads diseases at an incredibly fast rate. Perhaps too fast for the immune systems of budgies to cope. Nonetheless, the disease rate seems preposterous. When I started breeding budgies in the 1950s diseases were never a problem of this scale. Clearly something is seriously wrong – some new thing has happened. Time and time again I looked at my birds as they too declined into a crevasse of morbidity. My average dropped from five chicks per nest to less than one. Yet I had a wonderful set of bird rooms and aviaries. People call it the Budgie Hilton. The aviaries were super clean (not dirty as they used to be) and very dry to prevent disease spread. The general care was meticulous and the feeding was excellent. Yet still they died or failed to reproduce. What had I done wrong? The diseases also produced eggbinding and I lost quite a few hens. I attributed this to the fact that many of my birds were over-weight. Yet I couldn’t get them to lose weight, even if I fed them on just a basic diet of Hungarian millet and water. By now many of you must be saying, yeah, I’ve got (or have had) that problem. Well, about a year ago I read some extraordinary new research on Vitamin D3. I had always assumed that D3 helped Calcium absorption for bones and eggs, and did little else. The extensive new research done on humans is breathtaking in its revelations and their possible relevance to budgies. Vitamin D3 does a lot more than build bones, it is a powerful anticancer agent and it regulates the immune system. Low Vitamin D3 levels in humans have been linked to many serious illnesses: various infectious diseases, cancers (such as breast and prostate) and autoimmune conditions. Identical twin studies showed that increased sun exposure as children can reduce the chance of developing Multiple Sclerosis by up to 57%. The same applies to autoimmune diabetes, Crohn’s Disease and tuberculosis. New research has also confirmed that, in humans, vitamin D3 deficiency has been linked to infertility in women and poor quality sperm and lower fertility in men. This is exactly what we have seen in budgies. Vitamin D3 is actually not a vitamin at all since we make it ourselves (as do birds) and it acts more like a hormone: that is a messenger chemical that controls various functions. It controls well over 1,000 genes in the human body. In humans, ultraviolet B light (which is part of normal sunlight) acts on oil on your skin and turns it into Vitamin D3, which is then re-absorbed. In budgies oil is taken from the preen gland at the base of the tail during preening and is spread all over the feathers. This is turned into Vitamin D3 by sunlight and the birds consume it later on during further preening. This is essential for the budgies’ health. Here’s the rub though: ultraviolet B light (UVB) does not travel through glass or clear plastic or fibreglass. Sunlight in general goes through, but not UVB light. So today’s modern aviaries and bird rooms are death traps for birds since little or no UVB light reaches the budgies themselves. It gets worse. Even “full spectrum” fluorescent lights lack UVB light. They produce the wrong sort of UV light, that is UVA. While certain foods contain Vitamin D3 such as cod liver oil, this is a messy and dangerous supplement that does far too little to help. It may assist in safe egg laying and other calcium issues, but not much more. So I decided twelve months ago to try some experiments. My birds had sadly ceased breeding in their fully enclosed aviaries with glass or clear fibreglass roofs and windows. I removed all of my glass windows and doors. I also removed all of the clear fibreglass roofing. I installed reptile versions of full spectrum lights which had a fair amount of UVB emissions (timed to come on when I was absent). I approached a local bird medications company (Vetafarm) in Australia to create a new supplement which was high in Vitamin D3 and which could be added to the birds’ water. In this, I am indebted to avian veterinarian Dr. Tony Gestier of Vetafarm. It’s now a year later. The results are spectacular. Although I have discontinued all the fiddly food supplements and all bird medicines, my birds have leapt back to health. Eggbinding is now down to zero. Most pairs have around four chicks per nest. The chicks are huge, often bigger than their parents. Some pairs have seven babies per nest. Some previously infertile birds are now fertile again. Some incapacitated birds are managing to breed five babies in a nest. Many older birds (over 4 years) are healthier but have not hatched babies. But they are at least laying eggs. I have no sick birds and have only had two sick birds (out of 350) in the last six months: both recovered and have babies. Several died of old age (over six years old). The worst part was that, for six months after I started to feed them the supplement, nothing happened. It took around seven months to start to work. Many of my best birds seem beyond help, but the younger ones are rallying. My aviaries get rain in them now. They smell a bit (like they used to before the clear roofing - but my breeding successes were huge then). The aviaries are windy too and my birds get wet. And I couldn’t care less. I have babies again and no sick birds. I have huge clearwing babies that are as big as normals. My research was done in Sydney, Australia. The vitamin supplement is added to the water - it is now released as Vetafarm Soluvite D Breeder. It contains 2,500,000 IU of Vitamin D3 – twice previous levels. I put it in their water all the time. The lights I use are called Sylvania Reptistar. These need replacing every six months to maintain UVB output. I feed the following: Seed - 95% Hungarian millet and 5% plain canary Other – fresh corn on the cob, silverbeet and carrot daily Shellgrit and cuttlebone Nothing else Summary It now seems that the budgerigar diseases that have crippled our breeding for years have been caused by badly-designed aviaries that exclude UVB light which in turn causes a deficiency in Vitamin D3. This compromises the birds’ immune systems which leads to severe and constant disease problems. Viral feather diseases go unchecked, avian gastric yeast (normal in birds’ tummies) goes feral and slowly kills birds and most other common diseases get out of hand. Fertility plummets and general budgerigar vigour collapses. When significant increases in Vitamin D3 are introduced, the problems begin to recede. Improvements are slow, but perhaps in one or two generations the younger generations will be fully healthy again. Even infected eyes have largely cleared up and no babies have this problem like they used to. I have no new cases of feather loss of any sort. A few old flightless birds can fly again (but not many). Obviously budgerigar aviaries or bird rooms which are open to direct sunlight will produce far healthier birds. It also seems apparent that the older vitamin supplements fed to birds simply don’t contain anywhere near enough Vitamin D3. Hopefully, the new one is far better. For those wishing to read further on Vitamin D3, check out the November, 2007 issue of Scientific American pages 36 – 44. To read the entire article go to www.sciam.com & search for cell defenses and the sunshine vitamin. Copyright CTC Productions 2009 additional article supplied today by Don Burke with thanks Don Burke Kevin Nesbitt mentioned that he had poor breeding results in recent months. I sent in a rough scenario on Vitamin D deficiency. Then a flurry of other emails came in and it became clear that I had done a poor job at explaining the new science. So, Take Two! A bird’s immune system is vastly more important and powerful in maintaining its good health and fertility than all of the antibiotics ever invented put together…But they are not alternatives. With a healthy immune system, which is underpinned by Vitamin D, you have a sturdy platform to build success on. You can still use antibiotics as you think fit, but you should need them less often. In an enclosed aviary or bird room, budgies often get little or no UVB light. UVB light does not travel through glass, clear plastic or fibreglass. It must shine directly onto your birds. With no UVB light a bird’s immune system is massively impaired. Vitamin D3 is made by the birds when sunlight (which has UVB light in it)hits their skin and feathers. And Vitamin D3 is not a vitamin at all: it is the hormone that drives the entire immune system of birds and mammals. No D3 means that a bird is very vulnerable to infections and many also have very low fertility. This is rock solid science. It’s true that many factors affect fertility: Overweight birds have low fertility due to fat deposits around their (internal) sex organs. Weather also plays a part. Budgies respond to day length, humidity, rain and temperature. However in a wet year they tend to breed more. This year’s temperature fluctuation may affect breeding success, but my aviaries are fully open to rain, wind and sun, and my figures for gold rung chicks so far is 192 chicks from 32 cabinets. (I own 52 but twenty are not in use at the moment.) Overall last calendar year I bred around 400 chicks (including purple and gold rung babies) Inbreeding can affect fertility. In some strains it does little harm, in others it all but destroys fertility. There are some excellent bits of scientific research to prove this. A year-round plan for breeding and nesting cycles does help. Pairing up: * selecting randy birds that are very fit and active does work, or * selecting pairs that select each other in the aviaries does work also. But 1 to 5 above are all things that you should do as well as getting the Vitamin D3 levels up to scratch. To repeat: It is vastly easier to get bird’s immune system up and running to avoid catching diseases, than it is to cure diseases once the bird has caught them. I’ll go further. From a recent auction, feedback from industry sources is that around 30 of the auctioned birds died soon after purchase, despite the fact that they were all very healthy on the day of the auction. The breeder’s aviaries were largely enclosed with very little sunlight striking the birds. In the home aviary, with impeccable care, the birds did okay. But as soon as they went to newer aviaries with new diseases, the reports are that many of the birds died. If all of this feedback is true, the weakened immune systems of the birds represented a ticking time bomb: expose the birds to new diseases and watch them die. Lastly, modern aviaries for exhibition birds are often quite literally death traps. Fully enclosed aviaries all but destroy immune systems. The older details from scientists and vets on Vitamin D3 are hopelessly out of date. D3 does vastly more than help calcium uptake: it runs the birds’ immune systems. The older recommended dose rates are hopelessly inadequate. Hence the problems with modern show budgies. Soluvite D Breeder is my own concept with double the old levels of Vitamin D3. I arranged for Vetafarm to produce and sell it. This is mentioned only so that I can state that I gave them both the new research and the new level of D3, but I derive no income from this or any of their products. You should also use Sylvania Repistar fluorescent lights in the bird room as well. You need to change them every 5 months or so as the UVB light output is not long lasting. …But still use all of the other things that currently work for you. Consider this though: overly frequent use of antibiotics causes the diseases to become resistant to the antibiotic, yet constant use of Vitamin D3 merely keeps the immune system going and working (no resistance build up). Also, ignore the silly arguments that over-dosing Vitamin D3 will poison your birds. The truth is that over dosing (i.e. too high a dose) of any product (e.g. antibiotics) will poison your birds. This is not just a problem with Vitamin D3, it is a normal state of affairs. So relax, the levels of Vitamin D3 in Soluvite D Breeder (used as per the label) are quite safe for your birds. For the record, in the development process, I tested the product on some of my culls at up to three times the recommended dose. No bird became ill. Nonetheless, stick to the recommended rate.

Babies this age Have been known to fly off when not contained in cage or aviary. Suggest you dont take these risks

I think if you are planning to hoodwink your mother with bad information then you deserve to not have another budgie

1. budgies do live singular lives with their human people and not get lonely. 2. Sparta does NOT need a breeding partner yet. 3. There is no Profit in breeding budgies.....when done correctly. as a parent I understand where your mother is coming from. Parents are less likely to add pets to the household if they think they are taking over or creating extra work or disturbance. So many kids still living at home do not realise that parents like extra help around the house, vaccuuming, dishes, taking out the rubbish, washing the car, cleaning out the garage, doing the gardening. If a child isnt pulling their weight around the house the parents get stressed about every little extra thing they THINK may cause an extra load upon the household. I think really you dont need that extra bird yet. When you got Sparta it was going to be a bird you tamed and trained.......hows that going ? If you have discovered you dont have the time for that then YES the bird may get a little lonely. Maybe you told your parents about all the time and training you were going to do with Sparta before you got your bird and maybe they see you arent ? I suggest you become the best child you can be for your parents..........earn their trust and respect and try asking again in maybe 6 months time. if you believe this then you are mis-led. yeah right Sorry........not what you wanted to hear,..................but needed to be said.

Then Challenge is considered a bible to show budgie breeders. This is another worth getting..... http://www.avianpublications.com/items/budgerigars/item205.htm

It seems to relate to the strength of the solution not the amount given

bump

This article has been kindly written and supplied by a good friend in the USA Alan Bundy of AWB Budgies. The reason for posting it is we have many a time had members HOTLINKING images to our forum or using others material or photos without consent and thus we get into trouble over it. It recently came to my attention that a BBC member had posted a link to her personal bird website and the greater part of the material on her website was content ( photos and written material ) taken from another website WITHOUT PERMISSION. I had to remove that members link to her website and ask that she not post it again until such times as the material was all her own and not stolen content. so, for the better education of members on whats allowable and not, we have here this great article by Alan. by AWBBudgies.com on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 5:05am This photograph was attributed me, but I did not take it. My name was attributed to a picture which was posted on the (ABS) American Budgerigar Society Bulletin. It looked like one I had taken at the All American in Wisconsin this past September 2011. After studying my edited pictures it appears that the picture in fact was not one of my own. Had it been, it would infringe on the Copyright laws adopted internationally. Now you may ask, what is the big deal? Frankly, it isn’t to me, but in my view it is a lack of regard for any author when an image is used without permission. I am flattered any time an image I have is used, and it is my desire to put out for the hobby as much content as I am able to help promote it. Do you know what it means when you see the symbol © connected to a photograph? If someone has the word copyright, what does that mean? According to the website : http://www.photosecrets.com “Copyright” is “the right to copy.” This right is a legal construct, designed for you — the artist — to support your artistic endeavors. Without copyright, people would be free to use your artistic work. With copyright, you have legal protection. If someone wants to use (copy) your work, they have to get your permission. You can negotiate a “license” to copy, and perhaps even get paid in real money. Copyright goes back as far as the 1550s when British printers secured the rights to their printing but this copyright did not include the rights of the author. Then in 1710 Briton gave copyright to authors called “Statute of Anne”. It gave limited duration to authors and purchasers. The US began to look at the issue during formation of the Constitution and in 1790 the original U.S. Copyright Act defined for authors, and inventors their rights which eventually were adopted globally starting in the UK in 1886 at the “Berne Convention”. What is copyright? According to the website: http://www.photosecrets.com Copyright applies to most artistic works, such as paintings, murals, statues, TV shows, music, and, photography. It gives you the exclusive right to make and sell copies of the photo; to create derivative works (other art based on the photo, such as a painting of the photo); to display the photo in public; and to license usage for money to other people. In a sense, copyright doesn’t give you anything, it really just affects other people, saying what they can’t do. During the “Berne Convention” in 1988-89 symbols and the word copyright were considered redundant and so they are not required to fix a copyright to any work created by the original user. Many do however still use these recognized symbols and words to additionally identify the creator to the public. At the moment any originally created thing is protected until you die or give away the rights to use it. It is protected until the author dies plus 70 years in the United States. So what do I do if my work is stolen or used? Well you can register your work by filing it with the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. Send along a copy of the photograph with the correct form found at the US Copyright office. This can also be done electronically. Does doing this prevent people from stealing your work? Generally no, but there are some unscrupulous people on the web who use pictures without permission at their own risk. In general however most pictures found on the web are not of high quality resolution to reproduce in a print thus limiting their ability. Most printers follow strict guidelines followed in the law when using photographs. What about people and familiar places in a photograph? Anytime there are images familiar or recognizable you must have a photo release form asking for permission showing a signature of approval. In some cases in a town you need to petition the local establishment and often pay a small fee in order to publish a recognizable image. What is the Fair Use Act? The Fair Use Act, is a way that news organizations, commentary, parody, and education may be used without the permission of the original author. This allows a way for other users to re-create original work. It however is not a reason to use original material and may be scrutinized as to the intent of the original work. It must not damage the original value of the protected work. My intent in writing this article is to make you think before you try and copy a picture and paste it into your content ether personal or public. Think of the author and consider what he or she may think. In my view my pictures are here to support our wonderful hobby as much as possible. I will almost always allow you to use any of my pictures as long as they are used to further the hobby. My only requirement is that you ask. Why, you might ask? Sometimes I may have a better quality file or maybe I don’t have permission to use the object or subject I have taken. These things are important to me so that I do not offend or have no permission. Whether I have permission to use a picture under The Fair Use Act, as a news or an educational purpose I personally will always remove a picture when asked if it is requested of me. Please continue taking pictures, they are important and create history for our future viewers. Protect your work and be generous. Alan W Bundy

Hi Lindsey and welcome We have lots of show breeders on here. Also if you are on facebook at all PM me your details and I will be able to put you in touch with a HUGE amount of budgie related facebook pages , show breeders, worldwide budgie people as well. Cheers Kaz

Please see any topics on this forum for FRENCH MOULT. You have been lied to about the bird and you have been sold a french moult budgie....see FAQ section top left of this page and if not enough info for you please google french moult budgerigars