Chrysocome

Melb, I love science so much, I hope someday my kids will too. I was mad about science and animals when I was little - especially astronomy and dinosaurs. I am indeed living in Werribee. I second Sailorwolf, you don't want to know what I've dissected! NN: Budgies chewing on my eyeball! I think my horsey is a little too pricey for my budgies to chew on, but I may get them on some of my toys plushie animals to see how that goes Thepie: Way to go, it sure is PharLap Yup Sailorwolf, he is a kiwi horse. Neat - I really dig your sig. It's soo pretty, the colours are lovely. Sailorwolf: I do that all the time, waffle on, post it, then decide it's too long and go back to change it but someone's already reading it. Lol. I always hope no one quotes me so I can change it discreetly. It's impossible to post too much in my threads though, I enjoy reading everyone's posts. I'd love to get the official tack from that site, but I am so poor right now. I'm thinking about making some of my own though, I think it would be funny to have a head collar and rugs that match the teaching horses at uni. Teehee. He'd be a mini teaching horse, which is what I'll be using him for. Gosh, I'm glad I'm not the only one that still has millions of soft toy animals left over from my childhood. My room looks like it belongs to a 9 year old. I have a massive pile of penguins as my centrepiece, and I mean a massive pile. I must get a picture of that! I've also got all my dragons on display. I love the sound of your plush collection, particularly the NZ animals - it's harder to get those animals here. I would love to get a kakapo! They are sooo adorable. You know what, when we first did Chrysomya last year all of my close friends turned around and looked at me! It was amusing. But not all that flattering to be associated the "hairy maggot blowfly"!

Well I've been negotiating with my mum and she said she really doesn't like the idea of having a lovebird around, the mess/noise of two budgies is enough for her It's probably for the best, I am a really busy person, a completely new species and a lone bird will probably need more than I can offer. Even so, sob! I wish... I'll just stare longingly at him, so gorgeous. I can dream Good luck MB. It's all because of this really vivid dream I had not long ago about this little (violet!) lovebird who loved me so much, he/she would snuggle against my neck all day and refuse to go anywhere else. There was this intense feeling of mutual affection, and he was so soft and warm, I loved him so much. I will never forget that feeling. I hope one day I will feel it for real.

That is all I can say. There are some terrible stories in here :D I am sorry for all your losses, and thank you for sharing so no one makes the same mistakes! What a horrible thing to experience. I lost Buffy because I left her outside unsupervised. Fearless little warrior, she was not fazed by anything and was always curious to investigate new things. So when they neighbour's cat came she had no chance. She was clawed through the bars and that was enough for a fatal combination of infections to take her I always worry about my budgies getting stuck behind things like bookshelves. I cover up any gaps if I can because there's no chance I could move something that big in time to remove a panicking bird before it hurt itself. Thk, is there something your bird really loves and will come to you if you have it? I used to have that problem, even though I went to the smallest room so they couldn't get any momentum, but then I figured out that they adore lettuce or bread (as treats of course) and will come straight to me if they see it. Another thing I worry about is stairs. I was carrying Milly to another room which is generally safe because she likes my shoulders, but one day mum burst in and gave her a fright. She made it to the stairs and I don't think she realised just how big the drop was - she exhausted herself going in circles slowly getting to the bottom level and landed quite hard on the bottom floor. She was winded but okay, but I was so scared, it could have been much worse. Now they go via the cage to different rooms.

Nnng My heart is telling me yes yes me pick me! I've always wanted a lovebird! My brain says don't do it, because I'll be far away next month so I can't give the little fella all the attention he needs. Sob. Oh I wish I could take him! He is adorable, good luck finding a home, I am certain you will.

That's so cool! It's fantastic that he's interested at that age That site I posted has a huge collection of them, but I've only ever seen four around Melbourne. I got the heart from Australia Geographic and the eye from Scienceworks, for $20 (they get up to about $35). Not cheap for a toy, but fair for a model. They also had a human skull with a brain, and a human torso where you can take the organs out. The eye is a bit flimsy, and they are lower grade plastic, but pretty cool for what they are. I was planning to get the animal ones off ebay. I was so happy when I found them, they've been invaluable for my anatomical studies - can actually understand radiology with my model heart

Okay not a real one. The big ones still scare me. But I've always been awed by their forms - they are so beautiful. I was so excited by something I bought the other day I had to share! A Breyer horse! From what I know Breyer models are currently rare in Australia, although fast gaining popularity. They're in the range of $50 to well over $100 each. I got this one with several discounts heaped onto it - for $25, a bargain and I had no idea until I got home and looked it up! I'd never heard of these models before but I am sooo obsessed now. You can even get full tack, rugs, bandages and everything for them! I'm a little excited, lol. He's definitely my favourite toy model. Best purchase I've made in ages! It looks so real. The photos didn't capture it at all. The light I used to take the pictures made him all shiny, but in normal light you can't see it. I keep thinking he could start romping around my (messy) desk any minute now. What makes it even better is they got so much of the anatomical detail correct - which is rare when we're talking about animal figurines. Details down to the facial artery, the periorbital fossa, the bulge of the atlas, the underside of the hoof, the muscles, oh I could go on, it's a dream for me. I never really understood horse legs until now! I can also practice my bandaging, nerve blocks and surgical approaches! On a much smaller scale of course! Isn't he magnificent? Can you guess which famous horse he is modelled on? I love anatomical models. Here are some other random ones I have. I want to get the horse, cow, and pig from this site. I think the cells are cute too! Yes. Random post, designed to prevent uni-themed nightmares due to cramming before I sleep.

ECHIDNOPHAGEA! Sorry. It's the one flea I always remember The chicken flea (it looks funny!). I would say it's rare unless you had other animals that also have fleas, or perhaps contact with wild birds. But as Elly said budgies more commonly get mites. If you are really worried you can look for mites by looking at a budgie's open wing with a good light source, they often hide under the feathers there. However, birds spend a large percentage of their day preening and I agree this could be what you are seeing. I had a budgie when I was in high school, Buffy, who would never show fear. When she was introduced to something completely new and that would obviously freak out a normal budgie, she would act nonchalant and preen herself, sing for a bit, all the while edging closer to the new thing to see if it was something to eat, play with or attack to make it go away. It sounds like a similiar kind of thing.

As you know Milly and Squee have been best friends since I first introduced them to each other. But Squee seems to have come back into season and Milly has turned vicious! I always knew this could happen with two hens, but I hoped that having them together since they were little would get them used to each other. A few months ago I had to put them in one cage because Milly was gnawing on her blue cage- to the point where she went through the paint down to metal, which rusted. I thought that since they got along so well and they got plenty of flight time they would be alright living in the same cage. That went well - really well - until now! It started this week. Even outside the cage, Milly will go out of her way to chuck Squee off my shoulder. Then when I tried to separate them Milly bit me so hard it looks like I have little mosquito bites all down my finger It's really distressing to see my (normally) mild mannered Milly beating up little Squee! I've taken to leaving the cage downstairs and carrying just one away to my study for play and flight. It looks like I have to go cage hunting again as I'm worried about the rust. Sigh. I thought the dream would last. Could this have something to do with light, as it's unusual for Squee to be in breeding condition at this time of year right? I am going to be covering them more, hope it will bring down the aggression. I am watching them for now and will pop Squee into the blue cage for a very short time if it comes down to it - maybe she won't chew the paint like Milly did. I am currently looking for a new cage to separate them, but would really love to see them getting along. Any suggestions? Edit - I forgot to mention that they only seem to be doing this when I'm in the room. I just went to sneak a look and they're sitting next to each other preening.

Tell me about it - I can't bring myself to study urinary pathology when BBC and Youtube beckon! Yup, that first year we call "prevet" or "-1 year" lol, it is all science based, the real vet stuff starts in 'first year'. I agree, it's something like six months to a year ahead of your course. But I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's all in our heads by graduation! The dog I anaesthetised - our pracs are fairly serious at this point, the prac I refer to is one where we use dogs that will be euthanased after (and were always going to be euthanased anyway) to set up a full surgery situation. The idea of doing surgery on them before they die doesn't sit right with some people, and fair enough, but I believe that by using them to teach vet students we give their deaths some meaning, rather than being another statistic caused by our society's thoughtless pet keeping and breeding. Everybody takes those pracs seriously, and it teaches us valuable things that you can't practice without possible dire consequences in a real situation. As it is, if you mess up you get a black mark on your name and our surgery (demon)strator will crush your soul! We premed them with Ace, place a catheter, induce with Thio, intubate, maintain them on Iso and hook up Hartmann's solution (physiological saline) to the catheter. It's just as well we use Iso, as we often have greyhounds from our blood bank (we don't euthanase those ones!) or ex-racers that have failed the greyhound adoption program, Thio would not be great for such lean dogs. I'm fine with the jargon, I worry about our fellow readers though But for horses we did Total Intravenous. That reminds me. Once a couple months ago as part of a horse anaesthesia prac, some students gave Thio to a horse on Ace and totally forgot to check the catheter before they injected. It went perivascular and they had to flush it like crazy with saline and something basic (I think, to bring down the acidity), then give analgesia for the pain. We never did get to witness firsthand how Thiopentone redistributes, but we sure learnt a lot that day, none of us will ever forget to check the syringe again I think. The horse was fine, they did all the first aid in time. I will describe the thoracotomy and just what is required of an anaesthetist in my next update. The main point is that once you cut through the chest wall, all the pressure in the thorax disappears so the lungs can't inflate themselves, somebody has to sit there and be the dog's lungs. That was me. I kept the dog alive with the power of one hand. Okay, now I really need to study! Thanks for your thoughts everyone, and good luck to you Sailorwolf on your exams.

Maesie, biggest and warmest of hugs to you and your family. I hope all goes well. My thoughts are with you.

Hey Sailorwolf, well done on your tests! Interestingly, I also had a pathology test that night you did. But I also had my equine practical exam straight after it! That was nerve wracking. I also had my bovine practical exam two days later. I passed the prac exams, don't know about path though. I'm fascinated by your course, you seem to be doing things we only started to do this year even though I sort of had an extra six months to a year before you. For example I intubated my first dog just a few weeks ago. I also had to be the anaesthetist for that surgery - a thoracotomy no less- and I had to sit there the whole hour ventilating for the dog. We used Thio too - but through a catheter, which was the first I'd ever placed as well. Again, I only did my first rectals about a month ago (and have now done too many to count on both horses and cows). I remember that feeling the first time. It's funny that you should feel proud of something like that isn't it? It's like being inducted into Vetland. It so amazing when we had the pregnant cows and I was bouncing the calf around in its sac with my hand. The bird place sounds so cool. We just use the uni birds who live in an aviary on campus. I wish we got more bird pracs - but that will come in final year. I invite you to start a quick blog, even a couple lines a day here in my thread as I love reading about it. I'm on Swot Vac now, and will launch into exams next week. I am so nervous. I should go back to cramming. I'll try to update this thread in the next couple days.

Birds bob their tails to help them breathe - it's to do with how their air sacs are set up (which reminds me to finish that article for this site). Whether or not this is a sign of a problem is variable - is it really noticeable? A little bit of bobbing is within normal limits. It could just be he is a little overweight and needs to push a bit harder to fill his lungs. On the other hand he might have trouble breathing because of something in his lungs. Do you see other breathing signs like panting or discharge?

Totally forgot that people here would have no idea how the week system at my uni works! This week is week 14 so I am well and truly behind in updating this thing. The weeks following that one I just posted get even more hectic! Liv, that is interesting. I find bovine obstetrics fascinating. It's like a three-dimensional geometric puzzle where you have to figure out why the calf isn't coming out and then fix it. You can't use your eyes so you have to use your arms and fingers to guide you, and then use chains, ropes, angles, tension and force to solve it. Andrew, I'm not sure how much I can help you as I don't know how the high school/uni transition works in WA (if that is where you are studying). In Victoria each course at each university has a certain year 12 score and year 12 subjects to get in, and it's in their course guide. So I recommend that you start looking at university courses as you approach year 10 and 11, to find out what they recommend/require and exactly the routes of entry. Go to open days if you can, and find out information on courses (should be online at their sites). So you can then figure out what subjects to pick to keep your options open for all the things you might want to do, just in case you can't get into the one you want the most. As far as I know, there are 7 vet schools in Australia. But that isn't the only way in. For example, at Melbourne uni they used to take students from university Science, so you could keep trying to get into vet while you did that course - this meant that even if you couldn't get into vet each year, you could still keep going in science and end up with a degree. The vet faculity at Melbourne Uni is interested in high scores and the science subjects. They want chemistry, math methods (Maths B ), and one of physics/biology (I did both). These subjects give you high scores and also direct you to science courses in general. But it's always good to keep your options open, so you may have to do a little digging to find out how to fit all the things you want into high school. Please note this is what I know from Victoria, I don't know how it works elsewhere! I hope this has helped you. Feel free to ask me more. I was going to post the subjects I did from year 10 to first year science, but I'm afraid it might put you off - I was (am?) a workaholic and I picked all the hardest subjects!

Oh my, what a crazy bunch of weeks, with even worse to come. I am utterly swamped and it will pile on even more in the coming weeks. I'll have to split this up to catch up, and as exams approach I'll get more time between cramming to update. Ah, my cortisol levels are through the roof, just thinking about exams, and my heart rate is pumping right now just writing the word! Week 11 Monday: Path rounds with respiratory system as the theme. The dolphin larynx was neat. Afternoon: Bovine feet examination. Two hours of the lecturer talking about cow feet, followed by an amazing feat of teamwork to pick up a cow hoof - it's not as easy as a horse! To start with we had to set up a system with nothing but ropes and the cattle crush, and then sheer muscle to lift the cow up. It was not easy! I wish I had a photo but didn't have it that day. Later, we worked with a specially designed pulley that took the effort of one arm to lift the cow's leg - easy but just as the lecturer was telling us about the dangers, the demonstration cow went 'Jersey' on us, deciding it wanted to lie down in the crush with the pulley on, and the result was that it flipped, tangled itself and then was hanging by a single leg tied to the rope. After we let her down, she decided that lying sideways in the crush was not fun but couldn't figure out how to get up - 500kg of thrashing angry cow = not fun. She was fine though, and we proceeded with the other teaching cows. We used hoof picks and cutters, and practiced our conformation diagnoses. The demonstrator had some cow legs from the abbatoir and we got to use the angle grinder - I kid you not, they really do use these - I was not expecting the kickback from one of the higher power grinders, and nearly let go of the damn thing. There is little wonder now that they put our vet schools nextdoor to hospitals! Tuesday: An afternoon off. Wednesday: Examination of cardiovascular system of small animals: I really loved this prac. I like CVS in general. The lecturer taught in a logical manner that made you think, and was very interactive. So even though there were no live animals to play with, I enjoyed it. We listened to lots of different heart sounds including a holosystolic murmur - termed a 'machinery' murmur, and it really does sound like a washing machine. We also looked at electrocardiograms and echocardiograms (ultrasound). Then we worked through clinical cases - our one was extremely extensive but it made so much sense to me that it renewed my love for solving puzzles, seeing that beautiful clear line when you have an answer. Thursday: Equine surgical anatomy of the head and neck. This was work on carcases, we learnt how to drill into the maxillary sinus, inject into several areas for nerve blocks, insert catheters, etc. I performed an eye ablation... but won't gross you out with details.... After that grossness, it was Smallies Cocktail Night, which I had to help run. The theme was black, silver and emerald, "gems of wisdom". We had five guest speakers. It was crazy running around decorating the dining hall, we had helium balloons, candles, sequins, glitter, green glass 'gems' decorating the tables, plus long black material hanging from the rafters. and green table cloths It all looked so gorgeous, the place was transformed. I was very pleased and impressed by it. Everyone showed up in their finery and it was just so beautiful. The drinks were just delicious. Unfortunately I didn't see much of the actual speeches - I was too busy running around (in my heels!) organising food. We third years had to cook the hot food, and then we decorated the desert plates. So while I saw the first talk from our Dean about the Nome sled dog races, I didn't get to see much else, but fellow admin members visited us in the kitchen with the drinks. I'd also just bought a brand new dress that day from the op shop - gorgeous green with silver lace and it fit me perfectly - but no one took a single picture of me, because I was just a blur moving between kitchens and dining hall. Despite not getting to see the speeches, I really enjoyed the night and from feedback so did everyone else! A job well done from everyone on the Smallies team. Friday: I was pretty much dead from the late cocktail night, racing around helping things run smoothly and then packing up. The prac was bovine obstetrics. Our last session with the surrogate cows and pulling (dead) calves out of them. This may gross some people out - we praticsed our foetotomies. Unfortunately there will be times when a calf is already dead in the uterus/birth canal, but the mother is unable to expel the body. To save her a vet may choose to cut up the calf inside and pull it out in bits. To do this they use a very sharp metal rope inside a tube, or a concealed knife. It's really gruesome but at the same time, comparable to what we do to cows before they end up on our plates. An alternative is to perform a Caesarian, but it depends on the situation (presentation of the calf, how far along it is, how sick the mother looks, what the farmer wants etc). That's it for Week 11. Apologies for a distinct lack of visual material. I'd really like to talk about Week 12 - (annual Fish Week) - but it's late, and I have a very long rant about it, so I'll leave it for another day.

Sleepy budgies! Wait a minute.. watcha doin Milly? What's that blue thing? It's Milly's favourite toy - the hook that holds up the chain of balls with bells The rare blue-hook-billed budgie! ??? Another rare species, the budgieblob. *blob* Ain't she the sweetest?

What a sweety Enjoy your new budgie. I can't wait to get to know her

That's quite a complement Bea Your boys are my favourites too! One day we should let them meet. Can you imagine the adventures they'd have?

Handsome as always Bea I love them all.

Gah.. I don't know what compelled my mother to clean all the stovetops and benches with industrial cleaner at 8pm, peww, it has a really strong lemon smell in an attempt to mask the chemical smell, but fails rather spectacularly. It's permeated all the way through the house I'm worried about my own health here as well! Horrible smell is all up my nose. I can't open the windows in the rest of the house because it's so freezing outside. I had to run downstairs, save my budgies and put them up here in my room. They've been in here with the door shut and window open or the past hour but the rest of the house is still horrible, the room where they normally sleep is definitely out of bounds. They are staying in my room tonight. Parents are now asleep in their bedroom. I'm sitting here trying to breathe. I don't understand it.

Thanks all. It is nice to hear that somebody finds this interesting Jimmy - apparently not painful but really annoying! A very slow week, not many interesting pracs and quite a few afternoons off, not that I'm complaining! Continuing from last time... Thursday - uh oh! The Unmentionable Class! okay, so I was wrong, this was the one interesting prac I had in the past two weeks. How can I put this delicately... Every vet student knows about The Unmentionable Class, from early days in first year. It is under the topic Canine Reproduction. It involves... er.. collection from a male dog, putting it into the ***** (= female dog) and holding her upside down for five minutes. Before anybody does any of that, we all have to practice the collection bit... using each other's fingers as a certain part of the anatomy. Oh dear goodness it was embarassing. And if it all wasn't bizarre enough, one of the lecturers is standing there filming the whole thing! By utter coincidence, both our cameras died that day so I don't have any pictures. Friday was Anzac day. Monday - Path rounds, topic was respiration. This finished early, thankfully. Tuesday - Mastitis prac. We learnt all about pathology of the udders. They got in some samples from the abattoir, we practicsed our suture techniques and intra-mammary injections. Wednesday - AHM1. Business.. finance.. moneys... gah. Boring stuff about gross incomes, equity, capitals... It was a three hour prac in the computer lab using excel to work out how to manage the vet clinic as a business. Thursday - AHM2 - yet another three hour long tutorial on managing the vet clinic. Zzzz.... That night was Industry Night, where big drug companies advertise their stuff to the vet students by offering us lots of free stuff (most of which was advertising for how amazing their product is, of course). Each company had a raffle (after doing their quiz) and there were stacks of awesome prizes, including ipods, dvd players, wine, textbooks etc. Of course I didn't win anything but a heap of my friends did! Hmph. Friday - By utter luck my schedule arranged itself so that I got a second long weekend. So... a very boring week. This week will be a little crazy, as I will be helping with the annual Cocktail night, and all the organisation that entails up to and during the event. Have some arts. Tickets for cocktail night http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/Chrys...t/2008/tix1.jpg My revamped version of the Smallies logo http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/Chrysocome/art/logo.jpg I'm a little fixated on this idea, so you'll have to excuse me http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/Chrys...008/season1.jpg This is pretty much my close circle of friends, missing a few. You'll probably learn their faces through the pictures I post. Back to studying pathology...

Thanks all Melb, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I call Milly a YF2 recessive pied. It's her completely plain wings that get me, she used to have some black scallop marks but with each moult they disappeared, now there are none at all! As always, flash and artificial light don't do their different colours justice - a more accurate depiction is like this

Milly goes *floof* Blurry flight shot Milly is plotting.. you can see it in her eyes.. Squee: Yummy foot nom nom Coming in for landing.. Whee!

Respiratory system The respiratory system of birds happens to be my favourite topic in avian anatomy. There are similarities between a bird’s breathing system and a mammal’s, and also some very striking differences. What follows will be a short series about avian respiratory anatomy. The respiratory system functions to deliver air from the external environment, move it into the body, and then allow the vital molecules of oxygen to be diffused into blood capillaries within the lungs (and then travel in the blood to power the body). At the same time, the waste product carbon dioxide diffuses out of blood to be exported out of the body. The respiratory system is made up of upper (oral cavity, nasal cavity, pharynx, larynx) and lower (trachea, bronchi, secondary bronchi, parabronchi, lungs, air capillaries, air sacs) tracts. The mechanism of breathing in a bird is also vastly different when compared to a mammal. Part 1: The upper respiratory system and trachea In the roof of a bird’s mouth there is a slit, the medial choana, allowing direct connection between the nasal cavity and oral cavity. This slit is open while the bird is breathing, and closes when it swallows to prevent the movement of food into the nasal cavity. Birds do not have a soft palate. The opening to the trachea (windpipe), the glottis, lies in the centre on the floor of the mouth, just behind the base of the tongue. Unlike mammals, birds do not have vocal cords in their larynx, nor do they have an epiglottis. It is important to avoid pointing straight down at the centre of the mouth when introducing a needle for crop feeding, as it may enter the larynx into the trachea and lungs. The correct method is to roll the ball of the needle over the tongue (and hence over the glottis), pointing it more horizontally until it gently contacts the back of the mouth, the entrance to the oesophagus. The glottis is also much smaller than the oesophagus making it more difficult to enter. The glottis in a red-tailed hawk: http://www.themodernapprentice.com/trachea.jpg (Very large picture). The opening to the oesophageus is much larger and is at the back of the throat. Relative positions of the oesophagus and trachea: http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/942/648004.JPG (large picture) The trachea is drawn purple, the oesophagus is red. In mammals, the trachea is supported by U shaped cartilage rings set apart at fixed distances. In a bird however, the cartilage forms complete rings which overlap, covering the entire trachea. This makes it feel very firm and can be felt on the right side of a bird’s neck. If a crop needle enters the trachea, the ball cannot be felt from the skin, but if it has correctly entered the oesophagus the ball can be seen/felt across the soft wall. In some water birds, the trachea actually coils down into the breast bone, forming loops before entering the thorax. Birds have an extra feature in their trachea. At the point where the trachea divides into the two bronchi, the walls have membranes that produce sound when vibrated by moving air. The tension of the membranes and hence the pitch of sound can be changed by contracting muscles outside the trachea. This apparatus is called the syrinx. This difference in vocalisation organs (syrinx versus larynx) is the reason why birds can form very complex noises that our own vocal cords cannot replicate, and likewise they cannot produce some of the sounds that we can. Songbirds can operate the two sides of the syrinx independently – allowing it to sing a duet with itself! Large image of the syrinx and complete tracheal rings http://thediagram.com/4_5/syrinx.html Further reading All about birdsong: http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/virtuoso.html Very large site, but all the information you could possibly want on birdsong: www.birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-song.html --- Stay tuned for the next article, which is about the lower respiratory tract.

I love the look too - Milly and Squee never get them. Milly is so obsessed with keeping her head pretty, she basically demands that I pick at the sheathes until they open up - and if I don't she'll rub her head on her favourite toy until it's all gone. (There's a strangely satisfying feeling at opening those things, too :sad: ) Squee hasn't had a lot of moults yet, and when she does it's gradual so I never see her get spikey head. Great pics. I can't tell you the urge I have to pick at those feathers! Nng!

I'm a little confused by this discussion. In my mind a carrier is an animal that is infected but its immune system stops it from causing detrimental effects (symptoms). Sometimes virus can still shed to other animals, as this can be a separate process to causing disease in its host. I think the problem is in the definition of immunity and infection. Immunity simply means stopping an invading agent before it can cause significant disease. So immunity can mean that an animal will not show symptoms when it is infected (because of a defense launched by special cells in the body), and also that it can't be infected in the first place (eg defences at the point of entry) – both of these are forms of immunity. Melb is referring to the first point, Liv to the latter. But I think you are both arguing the same point – a bird carries the disease, but doesn’t show symptoms, because it has immunity (cells within the body stop the disease process), but it can still have the virus/bacteria inside it. It just doesn’t show symptoms – that is the key point when infected. HIV is a virus of the immune system - the symptom is lack of immunity. That's why it's impossible to vaccinate against it - vaccination only helps it because it stimulates the immune cells to take up the virus. I think the idea of latency is mixed up in here too - like a herpesvirus. A third of those exposed carry herpesvirus in our nerves and it sits there dormant until something else like stress/damage precipitates it- and voila, you get coldsores. But it is always there, and it can still be spread occasionally if the conditions are right. We can’t fight it with the immune system because it is hidden away in the nerve. Phew. Virology/microbiology is not a simple subject, as I can clearly remember! Anyhow. I'm with Sailor on this (just did JETACAR stuff too). Antibiotics are thrown around far too freely these days - both for humans and animals- and is the reason there are resistant superbugs now. The idea behind the yearly or whatever antibiotics is that some bacteria are obligate parasites, so they simply cannot survive without a host. So if you kill them all in one go, within the birds, there should be none left in the environment after a certain time. However that isn't to say a wild bird couldn't re-infect your flock and they would have zero immunity to it. You also run the risk of not killing them all if you haven't done a full course (power and duration) so the bugs that repopulate are even more resistant to antibiotics. On a side note, one of my vet friends just told me - she was mucking out one of the uni bird aviaries a couple months ago. Later that day one of the lecturers was... ":hap: But those birds have psittacosis!" She'd been aeroslising the faeces and breathing in, and was totally fine - guess she was lucky! Hope I haven't confused things even more.. My head hurts… O.O I think I'm going to look more closely at Chlamydophila to see how it does its work.. Liv where did you read about that lack of immunity stuff?