Posted July 9, 200816 yr Hi all, Well, about 2 weeks ago I bought home my latest little girl, Muffin. Shes a yellow headed grey with cinnamon markings and is a very pretty girl. Shes not very old as her cere still hasnt changed, but the breeder told us that it was a girl. The yellow on her face is quite pale but she also has a little bit of yellow on her wings. she has the faintest blue markings on her cheeks and has a very girly yet cute chirp! She loves to sit on her swing (I guess coz its the highest point??) and likes to follow Chirp by climbing along the roof of her cage (I swear all my lil guys are acrobats!) Once again she also likes lucerne. I have pix on my phone, I just havent had a chance to download them yet, but I will do this week end hopefully! Lil Miss
July 9, 200816 yr No quarantine ? http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs/i...&artlang=en If you read Angelic Vampires thread here http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....c=20627&hl= you may then understand the NEED for quarantining birds. Edited July 9, 200816 yr by KAZ
July 9, 200816 yr A number of times this year I have been extremely thankful that I quarantine all my new birds. If they are coming from a source that I trust such as a friend I may do a slightly shorter quarantine (and then re assess them as to whether to do a full quarantine) but otherwise every bird gets ATLEAST a month from when they were last healthy (ie. if they are unwell during the initial quarantine then I wait until they start to look healthy and count a month from then)
July 9, 200816 yr A point to make...even baby birds can carry diseases from their parents and the same controls must be in place. I believe Elly suggested .....in your other topic when you said you were getting a new bird.....Elly advised about quarantine. Edited July 9, 200816 yr by KAZ
July 9, 200816 yr Author No quarantine ? http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs/i...&artlang=en If you read Angelic Vampires thread here http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....c=20627&hl= you may then understand the NEED for quarantining birds. I dont believe in quarantining birds as most viruses and harmful bugs are air borne. When I had Miss Lacey (about 4 months ago) she was sick when we bought her home, we had her for a week and then died. She was in the cage next to Chirp and Chirp never got sick. Theyre cages were always next to each other. Also, it wouldnt matter even if I had Muffin in a separate cage (assuming she was a sick bird), Chirp, Abbie & Dale would all get sick too because they all breathe the same air in the same house. Wouldnt matter if they were in separate ends of the house or not. Its the same as the flu in humans. Its logic. And if we quarantine our birds while theyre young and protect them from all the deadlies, when and if theyre bred, it makes a weeker bird. Thats how I look at the quaranting issue...
July 9, 200816 yr Umm, with birds a large proportion of disease are transmitted by feather dust and faeces. The law of Gravity means feather dust and droppings fall to the ground unless you have some sort of large fan blowing them back up into the air It isn't at all like the human flu where viruses and bacteria float around in the air in droplets of moisture. With proper quarantine practices you should be able to contain any nasties. I have had a number of sick birds here in the last few months, some with the highly contagious psitticosis. It's so contagious that I actually got sick too! BUT because I was using very strict quarantine procedutres with my sick birds it was kept contained and didn't get passed on to my other 40 birds. If I had put that single sick bird in my aviary chances are I wouldn't have many budgies right now as psitticosis kills quickly. But if you are prepared to risk the life of your beloved pets there isn't much I can do to stop you
July 9, 200816 yr I would take MB's advice as that dreaded "P" word is a NASTY desease!!! and any bird can carry it for years without showing any symptoms but will infect other birds
July 9, 200816 yr No quarantine ? http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs/i...&artlang=en If you read Angelic Vampires thread here http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....c=20627&hl= you may then understand the NEED for quarantining birds. I dont believe in quarantining birds as most viruses and harmful bugs are air borne. When I had Miss Lacey (about 4 months ago) she was sick when we bought her home, we had her for a week and then died. She was in the cage next to Chirp and Chirp never got sick. Theyre cages were always next to each other. Also, it wouldnt matter even if I had Muffin in a separate cage (assuming she was a sick bird), Chirp, Abbie & Dale would all get sick too because they all breathe the same air in the same house. Wouldnt matter if they were in separate ends of the house or not. Its the same as the flu in humans. Its logic. And if we quarantine our birds while theyre young and protect them from all the deadlies, when and if theyre bred, it makes a weeker bird. Thats how I look at the quaranting issue... Those of us on here with far more years experience with birds would have to argue that point you have made. Experience with birds and disease have given us the knowledge and ability to advise you to HELP YOU. Advice given is not designed for you to take offense to being educated about quarantine. The fact is a lot of people just get excited and want to see their new birds together with their existing birds to see how they get along. In cases like that ANY EXCUSES will do to make that happen. A lot of good advice is ignored in the excitement to bring birds together too soon.
July 9, 200816 yr No quarantine ? http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs/i...&artlang=en If you read Angelic Vampires thread here http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....c=20627&hl= you may then understand the NEED for quarantining birds. I dont believe in quarantining birds as most viruses and harmful bugs are air borne. When I had Miss Lacey (about 4 months ago) she was sick when we bought her home, we had her for a week and then died. She was in the cage next to Chirp and Chirp never got sick. Theyre cages were always next to each other. Also, it wouldnt matter even if I had Muffin in a separate cage (assuming she was a sick bird), Chirp, Abbie & Dale would all get sick too because they all breathe the same air in the same house. Wouldnt matter if they were in separate ends of the house or not. Its the same as the flu in humans. Its logic. And if we quarantine our birds while theyre young and protect them from all the deadlies, when and if theyre bred, it makes a weeker bird. Thats how I look at the quaranting issue... I can relate to your point the same thing happened to me Pretty died and Merlin didn't get sick at all but that was forunate fate in my opinion. The advise that you have been given is good advice in fact EXCELLENT advice because though you can make excuses why you shouldn't you can't bring back any birds that have died and that is even a bigger guilt in my mind what if I would have quarantine would of it happened. The logic you are working can be used on some bird disease but not the ones that you quarantine for and when you read through this forum you will find that not only avaries and beloved pets have been wiped out from no quarantine but members on this forum such as Kaz have gotten sick from her birds. The advice is expert they are not spouting off at the mouth, it is not meant to be mean but a word of caution. We give advice so we can hopefully change your mind about the iimportance and teach others about how important it is for the safety of your existing birds and your own health.
July 10, 200816 yr I'm a vet student. And there are many ways diseases can be spread. Diseases can be spread via direct contact with a sick animal. Diseases can be spread via aerosols. Diseases can be spread by parasites which can be picked up by having a new bird in the same proximity as your existing one i.e. poo being eaten or mites walking over. Diseases can be spread by your birds feeding each other eg trichomoniosis (a protozoan disease). Viruses can only survive in the environment for a limited time, because they need living cells to reproduce in. The further your bird is away from the other the longer a virus will have to be in the air to get to the other bird and the less likely it is for it to actually survive the journey. By keeping your bird in another room it is in a separate air space and thus the bacteria and viruses that it breathes out are less likely to come into contact with your other bird, if proper hygiene measures are taken. Viruses and bacteria don't have a direction when they are airbourne, they don't purposefully seek out other animals, they just float where the air takes them. A wall is very hard for a virus or bacteria to penetrate. When you go to the hospital you don't come home with every single illness that was in the hospital do you? No you don't because they follow strict quarantine procedures. In each hospital there is bound to be one person with MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) but other people very rarely contract it when they go to a hospital, this is because quarantine procedures are put into effective control as soon as the infected patient enters the hospital. Also not all animals are as resistant to bugs as others. An animal that has been slowly exposed to a bug over time in small amounts can cope with it much better than a naive animal because they have built up an immunity to it. If a naive animal (one that has never been exposed to a pathogen (bacteria, virus, protozoa)) is exposed to a huge amount that an infected but immune animal is shedding then they can succumb very quickly. This has nothing to do with whether the animal was weak or strong or not, just how often it has been exposed to a particular pathogen. Quarantine is also good for your own health. If a new bird comes in and you have quarantined it and it becomes sick during quarantine you are able to treat it easily and quickley. If it was exposed to other birds, you will have to treat those birds as well as a responsible pet owner should and to stop the pathogen load getting so high that it could affect or infect you and your family. Which will end up costing several times more. The flu is not spread mainly via aerosols it is mainly spread by contact. Such as hugging and kissing infected people, door handles taps etc. The fact that Chirp didn't get sick from Miss Lacey means nothing. You don't know what Miss Lacey had that caused her to get sick and die. She might not have had a pathogen. She may have had a genetic disease, some sort of neoplasm etc etc. And if she did have a pathogenic disease, Chirp may have not come into contact with it enough, he may not have been susceptible to it or he may have just been plain lucky. Or her disease may have been picked up from the environment she was previously in but is not a contagious one. Some species of Staphylococcus are like that. By not quarantining you are running a huge risk to your birds and your family. Also a bird's acquired immune system is not passed on to its offspring, so has nothing to do with making weaker offspring because it was not exposed to enough diseases. This only happens in mammals and only while the baby is drinking the mother's milk. Once the animal is weaned it has to develop its own immune system. You can't just make assumptions. Why do hospitals quarantine, why do airports quarantine, why do zoo's quarantine? Because they have found that when they don't quarantine it all turns to custard.
July 10, 200816 yr For years I never Quarantined, didn't with Queenie and Harley, Didn't with Harley and Blue (well not really anyway) not much of it when Flame and Mozzie joined. I thought how you did. Then I decided it might be a good idea, I started doing it and I am so lucky that I did. Harley is an older bird and I am not sure he would fight off infection. But we can't tell you what to do, each to their own. I know people who have never Quarantined and have never had an issue, for years I never did and never had an issue so hopefully you continue to be lucky. Congrats on the newest member of your household by the way.
July 10, 200816 yr Couldn't have said it better myself Sw!!! Please be a smart bird owner and QUARRANTINE Edited July 10, 200816 yr by KAZ typo quarantine
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