# fledgling puffed up, eyes closed with appetite loss for 4 days



## sunbirdy (Mar 24, 2016)

Hi All

I often read posts on this forum looking for info but this is the first time I have posted. I posted this yesterday but not sure if it came through or if there is time delay.

We look after a flock of about 30 feral pigeons who spend the day at our house as we feed them, and fly off to sleep in a neighbour’s palm tree. 2 pairs now nest in boxes we built for them last year. On 19 March we noticed another new fledgling had arrived with the flock – but I saw that although it seemed to eat ok, it was standing puffed up most of the time. We caught it that afternoon and put in into our sickbay cage.

We gave it ¾ tablet Dovabiotics for 4 days (its doxycycline - probably local name) in case it was a bacterial infection. We also gave it ¾ tablet Ronsec (Medpet Product) that has Rondazole & Secnidazole in it – given on day 1 and 3. I realise now that we gave this by mistake and meant to give it the Coximed tablet as its symptoms seemed similar to Cocci. We gave it a ¾ Coximed last night.

It has progressively eaten less and lost its appetite since day 2 or 3. Since yesterday we have been hand feeding raw peas into its beak to try and get something into its crop. We have an infra red lamp in the cage and Hope it is now spending all its time in front of the lamp, eyes closed and still mostly puffed up. I think if there was no lamp for warmth and we hadn’t started trying to handfeed into its beak, that it most probably would have died from starvation? We have towels around the back and sides of the cage to help keep the warmth in.

It drinks a lot when given water but not much from the water bowl in the cage by itself. Today we feed it some corn/bird mix. Its poop is mostly fluid from the water it drinks with now some green solids.

Any ideas of what else we can do to help this bird. I have put apple cider vinegar into the water, and also give it water with probiotics and vitamin and iron tonic.

Thanks
Sunbirdy from South Africa 


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Thank you for helping the little guy. You seem to be doing everything right. Somebody more expert than me may have suggestions soon. Because it is a fledgling I worry about circovirus. But the watery poop with green might just indicate starvation. Please keep us posted on how he is doing.


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## Marina B (May 5, 2011)

Have you checked inside his mouth for any yellowish growths that might indicate canker? Although there's always the possibility that he might have wet canker and then there won't be any growths.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

Can you post photos with the droppings and with the bird or perhaps even make a little movie, upload it on youtube and give us the link?


Staying puffed up means he feels cold, which is because he dfoesn't eat enough. This indicates digestive problems, that can be of many kinds and types of complications, usually involving more than one patogen. Different zones, areas inside a city or other place may show predilection for one or another disease or type of complications, depending of climatic and hygienic conditions, infestation with certain diseases etc. Here is a list of some diseases and types of complications:



- Most often at the pigeons in my area (which doesn't mean is everywhere like here), the pigeons are suffering of an enteritis caused by coccidia, or coccidia in combination with canker. Coccidia perforates the walls of the bowel making it unable to digest hard food, thus, the seeds the bird has eaten remain in crop and the stagnation of the crop allows candida to grow there, mingling with the food and making sort of an elastic ball, obstructing anything that should pass into gissard, including the medicines and later, even the water. When the bird is weakened from not eating, often salmonella, a bacterium, start to grow in bird's organism and in many cases is the direct cause of death, inducing sepsis, which manifest inclusively by sudden death. If the bird doesn't get salmonella or salmonella is treated, the bird likely will die suffocated with the water from the crop blocked by candida. Coccidia causes intense thrist, bird drinks a lot of water that acdcumulates in crop and when the crop is accidentally presed, the water climbs in mouth, enter the trachea and invades the lungs.


- Other common disease in youngsters is dry canker, scientifically called trichomoniasis, caused by flagelate protozoa called trichomonas. In adults there is less frequent the dry form, as they aquire immunity to it, but they get sick with the wet form, when trichoimonas mulitply on the bowel's walls.In babies and youngsters, canker grow as yellow colored colonies in throat, mouth and other parts of the body and the death in untreated birds results from suffocation (the colonies pressing on trachea and obstructing it) or starvation (the colonies blocking the digestive tract).


- In adults also infestation with worms can be the cause of digestive problems and there are several other diseases occuring less frequently.




You have to visually examine the bird's mouth and palpate the throat to see if there are no canker nodules. If you don't find something like this, than more probably the bird suffers from complications starting from an enteritis. From the symptoms you described, I tend to think that ratherr is an enteritis. the green color of droppings may be because of candida or salmonella. There is a variety of shades of green droppings of a sick pigeon can have and some of these shades are associated by some people with one or another disease, but this type of evaluation is often misleading.

You should also palpate the chest bone, which if sharp, without flesh on it, indicates starvation. Such a bird is in a serious situation and saving his / her life is problematic even for someone with experience in pigeon rescuing. 

First, the crop must be cleared by candida which is not easy, as the enteritis doesn't let the food leave the crop which means even if candida is cleared, it will start very rapidly to grow again. Candida is a fungus that grow very fast in aerobic conditions like the birds' crop and is hard to stop. The medicine prescribed for crop candida is nystatin, which from my experience has not any effect. There are also systemic antifungals which are very toxic and they may kill the bird before the disease to do this. The one tolerated better by a pigeon's organism is fluconazole, but should be used only if the candida has infested the respiratory system or the tissues, appearing in mouth for example. And requires the crop to function well, which is not the case in most advanced enteritis situations.

The only thing that I found to work is to give water well soured with apple cider vinegar, made as sour as almost give the feeling of "burning" on the throat when you drink it. but this can be given only using the crop feeding method, which consists in introduction of liquids (water, food or medicines) with a tube and syringe attached to it, directly into crop, by introduction of the tube through bird's mouth and throat. The procedure is described on *this page* but to the info on this page I would add that the tube must be long enough to reach the bottom of the crop. The soured water must be given 2-4 times / day in first 1-2 days (or even more frequently if candida is advanced) and then few more days at a frequency of 2-3 times / day. If the enteritis has not been solved, treating against candida must be continued as long as the bowel problem persist, as candida will relapse as long as crop doesn't function normally.

In the same time with this treatment for candida, drugs against coccidia should be given, if there is the certitude that they will pass into organism and not remain in crop because of blockage. Here is sort of vicious circle: candida doesn't let the drug for enteritis to pass into organism and the enteritis allows candida to reinfest the crop. The solution is to give a daily dose of anticoccidian drug and then give several times soured water, which will allow the drug to be absorbed into organism.

The anticoccidian drug must be a sulpha-drug destined for coccidia. Amprolium, other anticoccidian, is not strong enough.


If dry canker is the problem, metronidazole from human drugstore is the best. Ronidazole based drugs are less efficient, as is a weaker drug. The dose for a youngster of 250 gr must be 40 mg.


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## sunbirdy (Mar 24, 2016)

Thanks Marina - we did check for canker and its seems clear. Nice to hear from a fellow SA 

Thanks cwebster – we weren’t aware of circovirus. When I looked up on the net it sounds like the symptoms were similar to what this birdie showed. 

Thanks AndreiS for taking the time for your indepth reply and advice. Its poop is mostly lots of water and some green solid (could be more green because of the peas) I will try and get a photo and post it. I think its starvation as we can feel the chestbone the last 2 -3 days. Its drinks lots of water voluntarily. Yesterday it still let us feed it some peas and mixed seeds but this morning it’s hardly letting us open its beak to feed it. It’s got weaker and yet still has a little energy to put up a resistance to being fed.

We gave it a Medpet “4-in-one” this morning which treats for Ecoli, Paratyphoid, Cocci and Canker just in case it may help with E.coli and salmonella and have made rehydrate for it and added probiotics.
But I think it’s an exhausted little birdie that probably wants to slip away and we are keeping it warm and as comfortable as possible and will try again to see if we can feed it something.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

Sleepiness is also a symptom of coccidiosis. 


If you decide to follow my indications, I can show you in more detail how to proceed through Skype. My Skype Id is andrei.voineasa


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## Marina B (May 5, 2011)

I hope he survives. It' frustrating trying to help when you know there's so many diseases out there and they are so difficult to diagnose.

For feeding a more mature bird, I find it easier to open the mouth and tilt the beak upwards and pour small amounts of very tiny seeds into his mouth for him to swallow. Keep us updated on how he is doing.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

sunbirdy said:


> Its poop is mostly lots of water and some green solid (could be more green because of the peas) I will try and get a photo and post it. I think its starvation as we can feel the chestbone the last 2 -3 days. Its drinks lots of water voluntarily. Yesterday it still let us feed it some peas and mixed seeds but this morning it’s hardly letting us open its beak to feed it. It’s got weaker and yet still has a little energy to put up a resistance to being fed.


Only starvation can be indicated by solid green poop. If is aqueous and green, then is a disease, this is what you will read on any website about birds' diseases. Your bird has an enteritis, most likely caused by coccidia and possibly salmonella as well,. The rapid deterioration of condition may indicate salmonella has too installed. If a vet can give her antibiotic shots (treatment lasts tyhree days) you can try to save her.



> We gave it a Medpet “4-in-one” this morning which treats for Ecoli, Paratyphoid, Cocci and Canker just in case it may help with E.coli and salmonella and have made rehydrate for it and added probiotics.


“x-in-one” drugs have little efficienty, especially in serious cases, as the amount of drugs at each administration is a quarter (in case of “4-in-one”) or half (in case of “2-in-one”) of the amount necessary to affect the pathogen. Some pathogens needs to be hit by a big enough amount of drug at once, not by several smaller amounts over the day.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

That drug will just make more harm, as try to treat several diseases at once with several combined drugs, but the amount of eachd drug is insufficient for the particular diesease is destined for and the overal toxicity of the drug is too high. You have to treat one or two diseases at a time, giving the full dose for each one.

Starvation in your pigeon is the consequence of a digestive disease. Is not the cause, but the effect of the problem. A bird can starve without being sick if is deprived of possibility of feeding and the droppings can turn green, but solid, not aqueous. When the droppings are aqueous and green, always is an infectious disease, a bowel infection, or enteritis.

The pathogens that commonly cause green droppings are coccidia and salmonella. Salmonella is an opportunistic agent, it is not the initial cause, but appears when the organism is debilitated by other causes but because its virulency it kills the bird before the initial disease to do this.

Saving such a bird will be problematic, but not impossible. Salmonella, at least in serious situation like this, can be stopped only with injectable antibiotics, more exactly a drug based on lincomycin-spectinomycin or, at least, injectable enrofloxacin (for the latter's efficiency I cannot speak as I haven't used). For linco-spectino, I can tell you from my experience of perhaps two hundreds situations that it works if the disease is not too advanced. But it also cause crop candida, which requires a special treatment with water soured with apple cider vinegar. If you want to learn about this treatment with vinegar, click on my name to access my profile, where there are some posts in which I describe the procedure. Is complicated for someone not used to it, but also I can tell you is effective.


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## sunbirdy (Mar 24, 2016)

Just to let you know that little Hope, who was a beautiful pure white pigeon, slipped away last night. It was peaceful and warm in a cosy place. Hope is now buried in Graces Garden of Remembrance - named after our beautiful fantail Grace who we treated for PMV in 2014 and who got taken by a goshawk in March last year when she had 2 week old chicks. Amazingly her mate Buddy , with the help of loads of seed on-tap, fed and raised them to independence.

Nice to have success stories and so sad when one loses one. We trust Hope is flying free .............


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

Animals don't want to die but, like humans, to be alive, to be free, play and so. 

Puting effort in helping them, sacrificing our time for them instead of investing this time in something else, makes us better and happier persons and with time, we even get the experience, the know-how to save them.


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## Marina B (May 5, 2011)

Sad, but at least he spend his final days in good hands and you've tried your best. Thanks.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Sunbirds, I agree with MarinaB. Am sorry to hear of the loss of little Hope but thank you for helping him and making his last days more comfortable.


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## sunbirdy (Mar 24, 2016)

Thanks to you all - have been away for a week and just returned and saw your messages.


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