i really hope that Norm pulls through for you, Dave

really hope Norm (the budgie) pulls through Dave. Good luck.

The vet rung me today, Norm (RIP) did not make it. Seems that whatever the lump was got bigger and he died somewhere between 12 and 1 today.

 

The vet asked if he could do an autopsy on Norm to seek to find the reason for the lump, I answered yes. Hopefully this was one small thing and not something that can affect the rest of my birds.

 

Norm was my only Texas Clear Body and was named after the most knowledgable person I know in relation to TCB's, and that is the resident poster on here named Norm. Sad day for my aviary, as not only did I lose a bird, but I lost a mutation.

 

One day more TCB's will adorn my aviary, but for now, Norm, you will be remembered.

 

Edited April 25, 200817 yr by Dave_McMinn

i am sorry to hear you lost Norm especially with him being your only texas clearbody. i hope that whatever was affecting him does not spread to the rest of your birds.

I am very sorry to hear he didnt make it Dave, in spite of us all hoping he would I wonder what the vet will find ?

Sorry he didn’t make it Dave, I hope it wont be too long before you can get another TCB. If it hadn’t been a lump that he had, with the weather how it’s been of late I wouldn’t be surprised if any bird got sick at the moment.

Yes, that is my concern in the aviary at the moment. I am concerned they are all goig to get colds.

 

They were wormed over the last 2 days, but I fear that cold are going to break out left and right. i know I said i don't like to give meds to my birds, but they might get some extra vitamins in their water.

 

Any thoughts? What about you Norm? Doing anything special with the uniques weather we are having at the moment?

 

Just so everyone knows, we have had 13 days of rain now in sydney. We have not had that for 85 years.

I don’t really know what we can do Dave, at least all my aviaries are well covered, but it’s just gone on for so long now, that everything is moist, they said it was going to clear today, but here it’s still been raining lots & I just got 4 leach on me feeding my birds, as they are even around the house now, as it’s so wet, all we can hope is that there is going to be a break, but I don’t like the look of things, as down south there’s a front coming up & in the west they is a lot of cloud coming in from the north west, which isn’t a good sign.

I don’t really know what we can do Dave, at least all my aviaries are well covered, but it’s just gone on for so long now, that everything is moist, they said it was going to clear today, but here it’s still been raining lots & I just got 4 leach on me feeding my birds, as they are even around the house now, as it’s so wet, all we can hope is that there is going to be a break, but I don’t like the look of things, as down south there’s a front coming up & in the west they is a lot of cloud coming in from the north west, which isn’t a good sign.

 

I am with you Norm, I go into my aviary and try to sweep the poo out, but because we are having so much rain, nothing is drying, not even the bird poo. If bird poo stays wet, it is a lot easier for illness to spread.

 

Tomorrow is meant to see sunshine, but only at 23 degrees down here, then rain again for Sunday.

 

I once went to Seattle, and a lady there told me that they once had 77 days of overcast skies and rain. 77 days? She said it made everyone depressed. I am praying for sunshine soon.

I spoke to the vet who performed the autopsy on Norm to determine the cause of death. Turns out that Norm has a protozoal infection is his crop, that the vet called Ticatsis for short, but is also referred to as canker or Trichmoniasis. He recommends that I put the whole aviary on Ronivet. This is a supplemnt that goes in their water.

 

Ronivet-S is the treatment of choice for birds ( budgies, pigeons and canaries ) suffering from canker ( trichomoniasis ) or other protozoal diseases eg. Cochlosoma in finches.

 

Ronivet-S is a water soluble, water stable chemical that has extremely high safety margins. It can be used at any stage of the birds breeding cycle to combat protozoal infection. Ronivet-S does not make the male birds infertile.

 

Canker is the most commonly encountered protozoal disease in aviculture. It can devastate pigeon and budgie breeding flocks and is a significant disease in exhibition canaries. The classic "cankers " ( large yellowish masses in the throats and crops of birds ) are the "tip of the iceberg " when it comes to the disease. Many other effects are seen from Trichomonads.

 

Because protozoa are persistent organisms, treatments need to be part of an aviary/loft management plan. Preventative treatments are recommended to control the disease. New introductions and birds in quarantine should be routinely treated at recommended rates.

 

I now I said that I was not big on drugging my birds, but this is a new introduction ot the birds that will come into play on Monday afternoon.

Dave I am so sorry to hear that you lost Norm the good thing is you have an answer and you can treat the avairy. I guess in a positive light Norms passing was not in vain as you could have lost the whole flock. Not making less light on his death because I know you care about each of your birds greatly. RIP Norm

 

I do believe there is a post about Bea treating her birds for this too because she also lost a bird to this you may want to PM her or do a forum search. She dealt with it last year I believe and I believe it was the same thing.

Dave I am so sorry to hear that you lost Norm the good thing is you have an answer and you can treat the avairy. I guess in a positive light Norms passing was not in vain as you could have lost the whole flock. Not making less light on his death because I know you care about each of your birds greatly. RIP Norm

 

I do believe there is a post about Bea treating her birds for this too because she also lost a bird to this you may want to PM her or do a forum search. She dealt with it last year I believe and I believe it was the same thing.

 

Thanks for this Elly. I will see what I can find.

 

You are right, it is not in vain. I wonder why some of the other "pet-type" birds survive anything but the "show-type" birds do not. Hmmmmm....?

I'm sorry you lost him. Rest In Peace Norm .

Sorry to hear about Norm. sounds like a good idea to add the water suppliments... good luck with it all.

Canker is very prevalent in pigeons, but I have never seen it in Budgie, whether some that have died had it or not I do not know. I lost one bird that I bought of late with a large growth that appeared on his back, but I thought that was a cist. In pigeons it's most prevalent in young in the nest they get a cheesy looking growth in their throat.

 

Which sort of chokes them & is very easy to see so you wouldn't miss it.

 

 

 

As to why pet birds don't get so many problems versus show types, well this is my theory. Lots of pet birds are bred by people that don't go into such detail about their birds, don't feed drugs & if a bird gets sick it dies. This is a form of natural selection only the strong survive. Whereas show breeders are selecting for certain criteria, the perfect show Budgie, it's very hard to succeeded with selection of birds if you are trying for lots of different things at once. So if something happens to a bird & it's the breeder's special bird, he tries everything to keep it alive, especially if he has just bought the bird for quite a large sum. So if you feed drugs, get vets to fix the "sick" birds after some time you are breeding a stud of "sick" birds, as like breeds like. The natural selection part of the equation is removed. I agree that it's hard loosing birds, but if birds get sick it's for some reason [mostly because the bird has less ability to keep disease at bay] even though it's sad to loose birds especially if they are your special bird [which is often the case] it is doing something for you removing the weakest birds, which you have no way of knowing, just by visual selection. If you breed from birds that have had the weakest removed by death from various reasons, it stands to reason that your birds are going to be stronger, whereas if every sick bird is saved wherever possible, the stud will be weaker.

 

What I do is if I have bought in a new bird, I will help the first generation as some where I have to get stock to start off with, I hope if I have a problem with a bird that I have bought in that after the first mating because it was mated probably with an unrelated bird, problems that it had may be removed by the new blood, but if in the next generation the problem still persists, they wont be assisted or that bird will be culled from my breeding. As an example I bought a nice large Cinnamon Sky Blue hen, on her first batch I noticed that even though all the eggs were fertile, after the second chick hatched, she just wouldn't feed any more chicks that hatched, I lost some before I realised what was happening. After that I fostered all her chicks after the second one & raised quite a lot of nice looking birds, but so far none of her hen chicks have started breeding yet, even though they have been in cabinets for some time. So I don't know what future this line has. I have had other lines that had lots of sick birds & even the ones that survived when bred the second generation still this line is getting more sick birds than others, I have other families that have never lost one bird.

 

So even though us humans think that being tough on your birds [to a certain extent] is cruel, saving too many sick birds is only buying you problems for the future. Hopefully by loosing some sick birds your breeding will produce healthier birds that then require less "help" to survive & also less death making in the long run breeding birds a much more rewarding pastime.

 

What you do to save your one & only pet bird, which will never be bred from, is totally different to what you do with a breeding stud to produce birds for the future.

Edited April 26, 200817 yr by Norm

Good point about the sick breeding the sick, I do agree with that. The vet told me that this is common in pigeons, but it can also affect budgies. I wonder how it occurred? Why did it just appear randomly now?

 

I do agree with natural selection, to a degree. I do not want to mdeicate my birds out of their mind, but to not act now would be irresponsible.

Maybe Norm the TCB had the cancer already growing when you bought him Dave. In young pigeons it grows pretty fast, but maybe in an older bird with it growing in or near his crop, may have taken some time to get large enough to cause problems. Some birds seem to get it after an injury; I guess they have to have the bug in their system first.

Dave I am so sorry to hear that you lost Norm the good thing is you have an answer and you can treat the avairy. I guess in a positive light Norms passing was not in vain as you could have lost the whole flock. Not making less light on his death because I know you care about each of your birds greatly. RIP Norm

 

I do believe there is a post about Bea treating her birds for this too because she also lost a bird to this you may want to PM her or do a forum search. She dealt with it last year I believe and I believe it was the same thing.

 

Thanks for this Elly. I will see what I can find.

 

You are right, it is not in vain. I wonder why some of the other "pet-type" birds survive anything but the "show-type" birds do not. Hmmmmm....?

 

I wish this statement was completely true because then Pretty would still be a live and he was a pet type, didn't make it to his 2nd birthday but Merlin lives on strong and healthy and he is a show type. Genes are genes I suppose....

Obviously that was supposed to be Canker…not the big C cancer, in my previous post, didn't notice till now. They are a bit similar in how they grow.

 

It’s true that it’s not as simple as all pet birds are tougher than show birds, it’s an individual thing, but as a general rule it seems that on the whole pet types are the more vigorous. As you say Elly it's all in their genes.

Edited April 27, 200817 yr by Norm

I'm sorry to hear Norm has passed over the rainbow bridge. He was a beautiful budgie. I think having the necropsy done was a lifesaver, now you know what the problem was and are able to try and prevent the spread to the rest of your birds. Hopefully you do not lose any more. I know how you feel about medicating and over-medicating your birds as I prefer to treat holistically if necessary but would rather just do all I can to prevent disease in the first place. I'm sorry for your loss but it seems his loss may save the lives of the rest since you know what is going on now. In the big scheme of things this is good, but on the scale of Norm himself I know you are heartbroken.