# Pigeons with chronic diarrhea



## kiwilove (Aug 21, 2014)

Hi all, i am hoping someone has experienced something similar and might be able to provide some insight. Basically my pigeons have had diarrhea for a long time and it doesn't seem to respond to any treatment. I've tried antibiotics, anti parasitics, anti yeast, and probiotics. I got my fantail Kiwi in Aug 2013, adopted from a wildlife rescue in Sacramento, and he was healthy for a little less than a year when we lived in San Diego. Right before I moved back up to Northern California for school, he started having mild, intermittent diarrhea (more like the occasional soft stool). I found coccidia on his fecal, treated with ponazuril twice, and he seemed ok for a little while (I can't recall if I retested the fecal then). I adopted strawberry from the same wildlife rescue in sac in September 2014, and in a month or 2 they both had bad, watery, smelly diarrhea. The avian vet tested for chlamydia, which was positive in kiwi, so I treated them both for 7 weeks with doxycycline. They also both had an elevated white cell count and yeast, which I treated with nystatin in drinking water. The diarrhea improved a bit at first but by the end of the treatment was just as bad or worse than before. Not finding anything on a subsequent fecal, the vet then prescribed ponazuril, flagyl, and fluconazole in case there was coccidia, giardia, or yeast that wasn't seen. No improvement. Next, the vet prescribed chloramphenicol and probiotics. No improvement. I drove with the birds down to San Diego for the summer, and their diarrhea seemed to improve. Now we are back in nor cal and it's worse as ever, with the very occasional normal poop. Their weight and activity and appetite have remained stable throughout, they stay outside, and I feed them a fortified dove seed mix with safflower and a weekly sprinkling of vitamins. They are a mated pair.

Also, is it normal for kiwi to regurgitate after billing? I mean, I know that billing is regurgitating into the other pigeons mouth, but he seems to regurgitate even more after they are done billing.


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