After having a couple of cases of FM… French moult…Polyoma virus, I have been reading all I could find on the net. From what I have read from the experts, once you get it in the aviary it spreads to 100% of birds, but it only has an effect on young birds before they leave or just on leaving the nest. Then after some time, most of the birds become immune to it, in something like 4 to 12 months. A few birds become carriers.

 

Things I have noticed are that some birds must have some natural immunity as with most things, as I have had single cases in some nests, while all other babies appeared unaffected. I have had cases in five nests so far, since the first case occurred after not having any problems before. It is often known as Budgerigar Feather disease, which may suggest that it’s pretty common in Budgies, but they say that Cockatiels & African Lovebirds are very prone to it, I have both these breeds & have been breeding them for something like 12 years & never had a case, it must have been introduce with some new birds, that didn’t show it but were carrying it. So far there have been no cases in these two breeds maybe it will still spread. I noticed in a cage next to the cage where the first case occurred, that had a couple of young birds that left the nest without signs of the disease, but subsequently dropped the main tail feathers which later grew back, but some had the pale colour [bleached look] that is present in feathers that grow back in some FM cases. I am thinking that they got FM just in time to have some effect, but only minor, older birds show no effects even if as I read it has spread to all birds.

 

What I have decided to do, whether it is good judgement or not I don’t know. I had moved some young to my young birdcages, which appeared okay, but later dropped their flight feathers, at first I was scared, but have now had a rethink & decided that it’s too late to isolate, which I tried at first but this failed as it still spread. My thoughts now are that maybe it’s better to introduce it into my young bird flock & if most birds become immune in a few months, they will then be immune by the time they breed. In America you can apparently get a vaccine, but this is not available in Australia. If when I start breeding with these young birds if further cases occur these must be carrier birds, so should be culled. I think I will cull also birds that don’t grow back their feathers on the assumption that these may be carriers. From what I have read things can be a lot worse than I have experienced, you can have dead in shell & birds that suddenly die, apart from the first nest where one bird suddenly died at about two weeks, which in hindsight, must have been the first sign, I haven’t had any of these worse effects, maybe there is already some level of immunity already in my flock or I have got a less virulent strain of FM.

 

I would be interested in your thoughts.

I am noticing the same things you are Norm in relation to French Moult. I have also just had three chicks in a nest drop nearly all their flights just prior to fledging. I pulled them out of the nest just now and put them on the floor of their breeder cage. All three chicks of their two parents, in that nest affected. No effect at all on the 4th chick that was also raised in the same nestbox ( as a foster )...it belonged to another pair. No feather issues at all, even having been raised amidst those three chicks who have dropped their flights. Also no issues in any nearby nests.

Most of the time when I get a case of French Moult, there seems to be differing factors at play. Some cases were where the parents stopped feeding the chicks and they seem to go through a "stress moult" due to apparent nutritional deficiencies at the time. Not always affecting every chick in the nest. Some chicks fledge nests looking great, and upon fledging some

( not all ) from that nest drop all their flight feathers. Some of these go on to grow their feathers again and some struggle with growing and or keeping these flights in the future.

I have two chicks from Bubblegums nest where the hen was plucking them in the nest. Their flight feathers have never grown back in fully and been retained. I believe in these cases their feather follicles have been damaged.

Some of the babies that dropped all their flights due to nutritional deficiencies from parental neglect have struggled with maintaining themselves and seem to have other issues at play ( breathing and heart palpitations ) and they often die at a young age.

I have had hens that bred very successful clutches in the past that suddenly had some french moult babies in a nest...again not all chicks affected.

As for going through an aviary 100% and the "scare tactics" some breeders use whereby they either cull or kill off whole families they believe carry the french moult line............I really am not sure it is entirely THAT CONTAGIOUS.

In my experience, where I DO have supposed French Moult youngster fully cohabiting with other "healthy" youngsters there has been no evident transferance of french moult effects to any others within the same group.

French moult is a subject that attracts many answers and theories. Some say heredity plays a part, a tired hen, an old hen, some say the moth thats gets into the seed plays a part, and a lot think it is highly contagious. I, like you, have had just one chick in a nest drop all its flights and the others are fine. I am not yet convinced it is as highly contagious as others think.

I DO KNOW that a lot of show breeders cull these lines of what they think may be carriers of french moult birds, to the petshops and bird dealers...where, maybe we "purchase" these problems....who knows ?

It's an interesting topic, and will, most likely have a variety of answers and causes as I have found, myself, in the past when researching.

The fact that there are so many variables at play when that situation surfaces in either nestbox, family group, or aviary leaves me still scratching my head. There is NO SET PATTERN I have yet discovered that truly answers all these questions in my mind or where it applies to any of these situations in my flock.

 

cheers Kaz

Edited September 5, 200717 yr by **KAZ**

Thanks for that information on your experience Kaz, as I hoped you would respond, as I had read in older posts that you had some problems with it & also read that you had retained some effected birds as pets.

 

My first experience was with a pair last year they were both birds I had bought from a pet shop the hen could have been old, but the cock I bought while very young. They had had two batches without any sign & then on their third & last batch, the last chick that left the nest dropped its tail & flight feathers, I thought straight away that it was French Moult, but the feathers grew back so quick I forgot about it. I have two areas of aviaries, this occurred in the bottom area, but then this year a couple of months ago a pair that included a male from one of this pairs chicks, paired with an unrelated chick had their first batch, the first chick was normal then the rest of the chicks four in number dropped their flights, one chick died, also as with your batch their was an unrelated chick fostered with them that was unaffected. I thought I would let them have another batch, but all chicks in that batch were affected. So I stopped them. The mother & father of the first batch last year have both died from some illness & I lost a couple of their young also, some of that batch were quite nice, so I have mated them with other, what I think are stronger lines & will keep chicks from them. Only one of these pairs has produced one FM after having normal seemingly unaffected chicks. The hen that was the first to drop her flight feathers has been bred this year, she hasn’t produced a FM chick, but has started to feather pluck her batches. I have only lost birds from this family & another, as I think both families seem less strong than most of my birds.

 

I haven’t had a case of FM in the bottom aviary area, where the first case occurred last year, all cases so far have been in the top area, where their male chick had that nest of FM’s. I had one case in the next aviary to them & in a bird room there where I must have either spread it during my feeding or maybe by the wind [dust].

 

I have read like you say that some suspect moths & mites, but these seem to be old sites & from about the 1990’s the scientists seem to have found it is a virus. So far most of my chicks have grown back their feathers only a few seem like they wont & all seem quite healthy apart from the feather loss. Another thing I have noticed, but maybe birds do it all the time, but I have only noticed in the aviary where some FM chicks were, is that I have observed birds chewing feathers that have fallen out of FM chick, this may help to spread it.

I have had a few this year. All except two have grown all their feathers back. Out of the two that haven't one has grown all except the tail feathers and the other is only 2 months old.

 

The last batch I have decided to try something. There is two lines of thought.

 

1. It is a mite that gets into the feather folicales.

 

2. It is a virus that effects the birds.

 

So with these two in mind I have started spraying with F10ss a disinfectant for a virus. This is done every morning into the breeding cages, flights and general bird room. When the chicks start to feather up I spray the wing buts and tail every week.

 

I also spray A.I.L. onto the Wing Buts and tail in the middle of the week.

 

The last few clutches has had no FM.

 

So i'll continue to do this.

Thanks for your in put Daz.

Can I ask what is F10ss and A.I.L please?

You better wait for Daz to answer that, but they are some spray probably put out by Vetafarm.

Can I ask what is F10ss and A.I.L please?

 

A.I.L is avian insect liquidator http://www.vetafarm.com.au/show_product.as...em_number=00275

thanks kaz..:dbb1:

Information on F10ss Disinfectant

 

Re french moult. I have some chicks losing feathers.

Of the four violet and cinnamon blues in a nest box two chicks have lost their flight feathers upon fledging...one of the violets and the cinnamon blue.

In another nest with the adopted YF grey dominant pieds. The youngest has lost all flights and a lot of body feathers including bald head. Eldest shows no signs whatsoever. In this nest I thought the mother was plucking but as it turned out she wasnt. I am having to handraise these ones as foster parents gave up.

 

PS One thing I have noticed in the budgie missing most of its feathers is a very high body temperature, while not being sick at all.

Edited November 5, 200717 yr by KAZ

Sorry to hear this Kaz. Hopefully this is just a minor attack of FM and they will grow their flights back.

So Can bird with FM recover? And we arnt sure whether its contagious to other birds?

So Can bird with FM recover? And we arnt sure whether its contagious to other birds?

Noone really has all those answers Briony. There are so many french moult theories and supposed "facts" they all disagree with each other that we cannot be sure of anything. I have french moult babies that havent recovered their full flight feathers. Some people say theirs have. I also have many who live with sibling who dont lose their feathers and birds affected who share aviaries with normal birds and no transference of the issue. There can be different reasons for babies losing their feathers as well. Sometimes when parents do not feed well or stop feeding babies some babies just lose their feathers in a stress moult. So, I cannot tell you for sure. But if you do a SEARCH on this forum for FRENCH MOULT you will find many topics that have been discussed before and many opinions and advice in those topics.

 

Cheers Kaz

Thanks Karen, im taking cinny (my suspected Fm) to the vet on friday, ill ley you know how that goes

There seems to be lots of different levels of FM. I think I have been lucky, as I only have had a few cases, in some nests. Some have recovered what looks like almost back to normal others keep getting feathers which fall out again & others have lost their tail & wing feathers & never seem to get them back. My theory is that it's probably at what stage they get the virus determines the extent of the damage to the feather follicles. Of course different levels of immunity may come into to it to.

 

I have read that there are different levels of infection too, even to the level that eggs don't hatch & chicks just die. This is just my idea again, but I think maybe it's good to have a low level infection, as it may immunise them against the more deadly types. I read as I think I say in my article that started this post, that the experts say that once you get the virus it's infective of 100% birds, but most birds are immune & then most after some months, from 4 to 12 months become immune, but a few remain carriers. You have to be careful with the article on the net, as it seems to me that many are written by bird keepers & many have their theories, many of which are pretty old fashioned, I think it's better to take notice of the more resent articles by trained people that say it's a virus of course maybe they still don't have all the answers.

 

I have never had bird’s loose body or head feathers Kaz, but maybe it can happen, or maybe it could be a combination of FM & plucking.

Edited November 5, 200717 yr by Norm

One thing I have noticed in this particular chick, Norm is that it has a very high body temperature. Feels hot to hold, but doesnt seem affected by it in the way of being sick or whatever. I am wondering if a common part of this feather loss involves a high body temperature resulting in the loss of the feathers. Would be worth noting in the future and testing temperatures. I will take some pictures later. With this little chick....as per an article read once....I pulled all remaining loose flight feathers, gave it a spot on treatment on ivermectin and I await possible new growth. I believe I was wrong about the mother plucking the baby as I saw feathers just fall away from the head and elsewhere on this chick, with no parental interference.

Edited November 5, 200717 yr by KAZ

Here are the chicks I was talking about...one full on french moult and the other seems normal

Both, by the way, are YF grey dominant pieds and meant to look the same.

Edited November 6, 200717 yr by Feathers

Definitely dramatic feather loss Kaz, luckily I haven’t experienced one like that. I will remember that about the temperature, next time, as I haven’t noticed anything like that. Are you sure it’s not because of so much feather loss, that the birds can’t control it’s temperature & because of almost no feathers maybe it would feel hotter, as no feathers to retain some of the body temp?

 

I have had the same experience with it, some birds in the same batch have no effect, while others have the feather loss, I’m guessing it’s something due to differing immune responses. Also I notice it retains quite a lot of down feathers; you would think they would get affected too. In feather plucking I seem to notice that they also pluck the down.

Definitely dramatic feather loss Kaz, luckily I haven’t experienced one like that. I will remember that about the temperature, next time, as I haven’t noticed anything like that. Are you sure it’s not because of so much feather loss, that the birds can’t control it’s temperature & because of almost no feathers maybe it would feel hotter, as no feathers to retain some of the body temp?

 

I have had the same experience with it, some birds in the same batch have no effect, while others have the feather loss, I’m guessing it’s something due to differing immune responses. Also I notice it retains quite a lot of down feathers; you would think they would get affected too. In feather plucking I seem to notice that they also pluck the down.

Re temperature. I thought about that......"the birds can’t control it’s temperature & because of almost no feathers maybe it would feel hotter" but the chicks body seems excessively hot to the point where you can really feel the heat when holding the chick in your hand. I am just wondering if it may be a common factor that hasnt been noticed yet ? I may try and take the birds temperature later and compare to normal birds and see the difference.

I don’t know what their normal temperature is Kaz, but it’s certainly warmer than human temperature. [birds in general] It will be interesting to see what you find out.

Great read thanks

 

I too have noticed the temp of FM bubs very warm