# Pigeon cured of Cocci still looking ill?



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

A rescued pigeon I found that was too weak to fly and get away from me is still looking weak even though her coccidia has been cured. I initially gave her 2.5mg Diclazuril, but it seemed to have no effect(its possible it was spat out) so I gave a full 5mg tablet of Diclazuril. The green watery diarrhea cleared up and the poop looks sort of greyish. I also gave the girl some Enroflox because I suspected there was more than one problem. I am now feeding the young pigeon with seed coated in olive oil and probiotic powder and vitamin powder. she is eating, but not much, and it is taking her rather a lot of time to recover. In the past, once the coccidia has been tackled, the pigeon normally becomes active quite quickly, but not in this case. I suspect there may be something else wrong, but I can see no obvious signs of disease. Maybe I should consider feeding her with some Kaytee mix to help kick start her system? Or should I just give her time to recover in her own good time? Any helpful suggestions welcome.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

If her weight is down and she has been ill for some time she won't bounce right back from that. Keeping an eye on the droppings can give you clues of what could be an illness she is still harboring. I think the kaytee is a good idea or Harrison's recovery formula. Giving a full course of antibiotics is important, followed up with bird probiotic.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I am looking for alternatives to Kaytee, so I may give the Harrison's formulas instead. I like the adult formula and they do a baby formula as well. I have never been happy about the GM content of Kaytee, have you seen some of the test results for animals fed on genetically modified crops!!!!!

Anyway, you are right about the recovery time being longer, she is slowly getting better. I may give her some kaytee to boost her system. Thanks for the advice.


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

How do you know she had cocci?
If so, how do you know she's cured?
How long did you give enroflox?
Did you give anything for yeast?


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

She was loosing large amounts of fluid that was green especially the little bit of solid that was in the droppings. There was no urates. The first does of Diclazuril seemed to have no effect, but I did not check to see if she spat it out as it sometimes gets stuck in their throat. The second dose cleared up the diarrhea by the second day and she is slowly starting to eat proper again. I accompanied this with a 7 day course of Enroflox which I think should be enough. I have not treated for yeast infections before as it has never been a significant factor in the birds I have treated. Its like canker, I just do not see much of it where I am. Coccidia on the other hand seems to get any pigeon that has trouble finding food, which is becoming a bigger issue as the council takes away all the areas where the pigeons used to feed.
She is getting better, but it is slower than I normally expect after a successful treatment of coccidia, so I do suspect there is some other factor involved. The pigeon is very young, possible a winter baby from this year. If there is a good page giving info on how to check for yeast infections then I would love to see it. I have found it hard to find good information with pictures of the symptoms. I have to order medicines one at a time, but I will add a yeast medicine if it turns out it is an issue here?


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

BHenderson said:


> She was loosing large amounts of fluid that was green especially the little bit of solid that was in the droppings. There was no urates. The first does of Diclazuril seemed to have no effect, but I did not check to see if she spat it out as it sometimes gets stuck in their throat. The second dose cleared up the diarrhea by the second day and she is slowly starting to eat proper again. I accompanied this with a 7 day course of Enroflox which I think should be enough. I have not treated for yeast infections before as it has never been a significant factor in the birds I have treated. Its like canker, I just do not see much of it where I am. Coccidia on the other hand seems to get any pigeon that has trouble finding food, which is becoming a bigger issue as the council takes away all the areas where the pigeons used to feed.
> She is getting better, but it is slower than I normally expect after a successful treatment of coccidia, so I do suspect there is some other factor involved. The pigeon is very young, possible a winter baby from this year. If there is a good page giving info on how to check for yeast infections then I would love to see it. I have found it hard to find good information with pictures of the symptoms. I have to order medicines one at a time, but I will add a yeast medicine if it turns out it is an issue here?



It's always wise to treat with enrofloxin for at least 10 days.
Yeast can't always be seen...it may be in the crop... and it's not dependent upon where you are but rather what medication is used. I always treat for yeast when medicating a bird with enroflox. It's also recommended by Colin Walker. The nature of enroflox is to kill the bad bacteria a long with the bad.That causes yeast.
Recently, I had an out break of salmonella among my rescue/rehabs.One of the symptoms was the green poop in clear liquid. I know it was salmonella because I had cultures done. My point is this...if one doesn't have cultures done, one cannot conclude definitively what the problem is.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I agree with you that having cultures done would be the best way to go, but cost is a big factor here. I believe we have had this conversation before about cost. Things have changed a little since then, but I am still not in a position to have cultures done easily. I am working with a charity now, but this charity is somewhat overloaded because it is the only charity in the London area that is operating a no kill policy, so we are picking up a lot of calls from members of the public that do not want to hand over recovered birds to other groups. We also clear railway bridges and building sites before netting and other work is done, some of these clearances are large and we have a large number of birds going through. There is only two of us acting as stop off points before the birds are distributed to aviary's and recovery. I keep some of the birds here if they need particular attention as the aviary's are only just getting set up and there is not a lot of people there at the moment. We have vets that we can take particularly serious cases to, but money is limited to what we raise internally most of the time. We recently paid for two expensive operations, one on a hedgehog and one on a pigeon baby that had to have a wing amputated(I hope to be able to offer a permanent place to this little darling with my permanent birds, he has been through a lot for one so young). I hope in the near future we can get a vet who may be willing to do some kind of "bulk purchase" deal with us so that we do not have to pay for each individual test, but for the time being most of the diagnostics have to be done by experience and not science. This may seem unprofessional but the alternative is that many of these birds would not get any treatment at all.

The down side of this is that I am never sure that I have got the diagnosis right, the bird discussed in this post is getting better, but I suspect there is something hindering a fast recovery. It could well be some kind of yeast infection and I will try to look into this. I also have another female pigeon that has been pooping red smelly droppings for some time. Not blood red or dark red like actual blood, but as sort of sandy red. The droppings also smell even though she is not sitting on a nest at the moment. I have not way of diagnosing what is causing this, and I am reluctant just to put her on a standard dose of antibiotics at the moment because she is crop feeding her babies. She is showing no signs of illness so I am inclined to leave it alone while she is feeding young, but I would love to have the help of a vet in this diagnosis. I have another a white fantail female given to me recently by someone who rescued it from a pet shop that was about to "get rid" of her. She has what has been described to me as "drop wing", again I do not know exactly what this means. One side of her body seems to be without feeling and she often trips over her wing which hangs low. She makes attempts at flight but can only do an extended jump really. She has been in a cage for far to long and I hope she will benefit from the extra freedom she had here, but again I would love the help of a vet in diagnosing what is wrong with her and if there is anything we can do about it. I have as many medicines as I can afford and I get most things right by instinct rather than any great degree of skill, but until we have a permanent source of income we are always going to have to prioritise what veterinary work we can afford to have done. I live in hope that we may get a vet that might be willing to donate a couple of hours a week to look at some of our cases, but until then I have to deal with things as they are.

You may have noticed a little while ago I was trying to get a book going called "where there is no vet". I met some resistance to this because people consider that a vet should always be consulted, but it is impractical to try and do this when so many birds are going through our hands, the money just does not exist. We learn a lot on the job and I am sure we are not the only ones working under such financial constraints. I felt such a book could have helped in situation where people are working with birds but have little or no access to a vet. 

The name you mention "Colin Walker", I guess is an treatment specialist. I will do a search on his name in the hope of finding some useful information. Any sources of information you can direct me to would be much appreciated. I would love to be able to take many of these cases to a vet but it is just not practical, so any information that allows me to do the best job I can in the circumstances would be much appreciated.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

By the way the little fella is still looking weak to me. He is eating and grooming, but is sitting around a lot and has very watery droppings. Totally clear with a tube of solid matter in, but lots of clear fluid. No smell to it. I have seen this before after Diclazuril and it may just be the recovery phase, I am just concerned that he is not getting his energy back.
Apparently the watery droppings can be the result of damage to the kidneys caused by the coccidia, but it might also indicate an infection by something else. I don't know if to risk leaving it and see if he recovers after a couple of days or to try Enroflox again, or maybe another treatment(I don't have many). If anyone wants to make an educated guess about the best course of action?


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

This pigeon recovered in the end. I have increased the amount of pre and pro biotics that I put in the food for all the pigeons and this seems to have lead to an increase in health all round. Also I saw an offer on two herbal mixes recently called "colombine tea" and "muta seed", and I have found the overall health of my pigeons improving, they all have shiny coats and good appetites and I am pleased with the results. I hope I can afford to keep this up as it is obviously the best way to go to improve the health of the pigeons, and therefore improve their overall chances of recovery.


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