# Wing Problem - Deformed Flights



## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

Never a dull moment... I've just adopted this cockbird from Lou Arcuri's flock.
Lou's pigeons are going to be sold tomorrow, and I was afraid Buddy wouldn't "have a chance" with his wings like this, and I'm going to give him one. 

Last fall, his flight feathers didn't grow back in after moulting, but he seems healthy otherwise, and I figured they'd regrow eventually... 
He eats/drinks normally, poops are not unusual, he does the lobster-tail dance, and otherwise acts like the other cockbirds.

I just caught him to tag him as mine, and noticed that his flights have sort of regrown, but are rather deformed. 
And there's something strange about the "fingers" of the wings; the skin looks sort of "crummy," not just the "wacked" feathers. 
After bath today, he preened the wings a lot, almost with an annoyed attitude.
(he was last into the bath pan, since I had to help him up to the aviary,so if he "has" anything, I doubt he shared it in the bath).
(pics below; my helper is holding him)...

What causes this? He's the only one having this problem with his wings.
The flight feathers were normal until he moulted late last fall.
Buddy's right wing








Underside of right wing








Left wing


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Well he is a beautiful bird otherwise.

How old was he when he moulted and is there any other history on Buddy? Was he sick before the molt?


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

Buddy was on Lou's "Old Bird" racing team, but they hadn't raced for the past 3 or 4 years. He's between 5 and 8 years old.
(I have not recorded his band # yet, and forget which year the bands were red, and today was preoccupied with getting pics to post here requesting advice)
To my knowledge, Buddy was not sick last summer or fall, nor has been since, other than this feather & wing issue.


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

I think you would have to look closely to the actual Follicles and to the condition of the Tissues they are in, to see if there are signs of something causing this.

Maybe some sort of Mites in the Follicles, or, an inflamitory condition of some kind, a fungal infection localized there, or an old injury and infection which went unchecked.


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

I'll take a closer look and try to take better pics tomorrow... 

Hmm, Ivermectin should have worked against mites as well as worms, right? (everyone just had a dose last week)
Does it work against external parasites when taken internally, or must it be applied topically for mites?

I have Medistatin (Nystatin), but don't know what a skin/feather fungus looks like. 

Meanwhile, I'll try the forum search and see if older threads turn up any info or pics that help. 
I may have searched too specifically and missed something earlier.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

There's a good chance mites or pigeon flies could have caused it. Poor guy. But he sure is pretty otherwise!


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## Dobato (Jul 3, 2008)

Robin, in theory taking the Ivermectin internally should kill mites that feed off the blood of a bird. That being said, I don't think it would hurt to put 2-3 drops of the drench you ordered in in 10mL of water, mix it in, and take a cotton ball and soak down the wing. I would more suspect some kind of infection, more probable bacterial over fungal, set in locally and caused damage to the the feather follicles. It might be a good idea, if you can manage it, to have a vet have a look at it. Sometimes infections can become encapsulated and persistent, meaning a kind of chronic local infection, perhaps the reason this has not yet fully resolved on its own.

Karyn


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

Aargh , I found some feather lice on a few of my other pij yesterday... I have some Scalex, but it's going to be challenging to spritz 30-mumble birds.

One of the local club members suggested that a Borax bath should help.
Opinions???

I've got the birds in the cleanest coop available (but the building is ancient, and god knows what works out of the nooks and crannies when a thunderstorm shakes the coop); would broadcasting diotomaceous earth and/or sevin powder be an appropriate environment treatment? 

@Karyn, I will give Buddy the cotton ball sponge bath tomorrow, and I may have a lead on a vet who will see pigeons, from a guy who rescued one (whose owner I'm still trying to find)...


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## Dobato (Jul 3, 2008)

Robin, I did a little more reading on the Permectrin II you have. If you remember, I mentioned that I used a Pyrethrin based product for insect control. Well it seems that Permectrin II is actually a pyrethroid, a man made synthetic version of Pyrethrin. It seems to have a good safety profile, is recommended by Dr. Colin Walker (a noted pigeon vet) as a good choice for this reason and can be used as a dip, something we touched on in Junior's thread. The Permectrin II can also be sprayed around the coop.

The instructions for the amount to use for a dip are here, 1/2 oz (15mL) to a gallon of water. The concentration is slightly less then Dr. Walker recommends, so I feel this would be a very safe concentration to use.

http://www.foyspigeonsupplies.com/catalog/707-709.html

Dr. Walker recommends using a 1/2 teaspoon of soap flakes as a wetting agent and many sites recommend that you can use a teaspoon of baby shampoo for this as well. To dip them it's fairly straight forward, use slightly warm water, add Permectrin II (1/2oz to the gallon), dip them in, making sure their head is kept above the water, work the water in a bit, spread each wing out to make sure water gets under the wing and that's it.

Just a reminder, Junior is due for her follow up dose of Ivermectin 0.10mL, given as before.

Karyn


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

Thanks Karyn,

I plan to spray "my" coop as well as dipping, and had acquired additional Permectrin II because I thought I'd need to spray all the coops... though now all except one other than mine are empty... and those birds will be leaving next week.

They are due for their worming follow-up, as are the rest of mine (they got their first dose 2 days after Junior had her most recent dose). 
Can Junior get her follow-up dose in the water with the rest of my flock, or must she have it from the syringe?

I will give Lou's birds that are still here their follow-up worming dose in the water, so they will be good to go... 
Some of the people who bought birds last weekend tried to give me grief about "why a follow-up dose?" 
One of them even quizzed me on the dilution proportions... I think he was trying to call my bluff, which I didn't appreciate.  

I will have to get goggles to wear while dipping birds, I think, because I'm sure they will shake themselves like a wet dog afterward, and fly around wet.  
The Permectrin II label recommends 2.5 oz/gallon for spraying animals with a low-pressure sprayer, and 40cc/gallon for spraying premises (though they mention foggers & power sprayers in the premises instructions  ) I'm assuming I can mix by gallons and refill a spritz bottle as needed...

This coop is configured such that I can send the birds to the front section & aviary until the nest boxes and side/back walls & floor are dry, then close the gate and keep them in the back section while I spray the front wall, floor, and aviary.

We went to see a vendor that's willling to customize their "stock" outbuildings today, and will be ordering one that's part coop and part storage, as soon as we get the OK from the borough for it, hopefully this week. With luck, my birds will have new quarters by the end of August.


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## Dobato (Jul 3, 2008)

rfboyer said:


> Can Junior get her follow-up dose in the water with the rest of my flock, or must she have it from the syringe?


Robin, with as many worms as Junior had come out of her, to tell you the truth, I would feel much better if you gave her an individual dose of the Ivermectin, no guessing how much she drank, and we will know she has then completed (with correct dosing) the recommended regime.

The directions for the Permectrin II seem a little confusing to me, not sure why they would recommend 2.5oz (75mL) a gal. for spraying directly on animals, and then roughly half that, 40cc/mL a gal., for general spraying of premises, off the top of my head, I would have thought it would be the other way around, if anything. Your plan for segregating the birds while you spray sounds good, but If you have one of those pump sprayers, I would make sure it is set more toward spray/stream, than anything that would be atomizing the spray much.

Anyway, make sure you follow the concentration instructions from Foy's for the dip, 1/2oz (15mL) a gal., and I think your plan for protecting yourself with so many birds to dip is a good one.

With Lou's birds, quiz them right back, you want to make sure they are going to good lofts/homes .

Karyn


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

*Following up...*

Now that the emergencies are dealt with, I took Buddy to the vet to check out his wing situation. In the fall, Buddy molted out the little deformed feathers in the pics upthread, but none grew in their place, and occasionally Buddy manages to peck/preen at them enough to draw a drop or two of blood...

Dr Dorn made a general examination of Buddy, and found him to be generally in good health. 

Then he examined the wings more closely, and removed several cysts that had formed at the wing follicles of Buddy's first several flights (the long ones), on both wings. Most of them were dark nasty crumbly things, but it was possible to tell that the follicles had produced multiple feathers where there should be one, and they never developed correctly and cysts formed (similar to a pore impacted by ingrown hair). 

He said that this doesn't seem to be injury or infection residue, the wing structures themselves are intact and in good order, and that this condition is rather uncommon among pigeons although seen more frequently in canaries. 

It is apparently a spontaneous "pattern error" rather than the result of inadequate nutrition or disease. Whether or not the follicles will in future produce normal feathers is uncertain, but Dr Dorn thought it unlikely that enough of them will grow in normally for Buddy to be able to fly very well. 

We'll be building a ramp in our loft to give him access to the aviary, if he doesn't regain enough flights to get there on his own... he can fly just high enough to use a nest box on the bottom row in the loft.


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

I'd probably want to get a sliver of a follicle, put it through a microtome and then examine the sample microscopically. It sounds similar to what happens to some guys' hair with male pattern baldness--essentially miniaturization of the follicle due to essentially chemical or inflammatory processes. If it were due to a fungal type of cause, you'd want to put the bird on a systemic antifungal like Itraconazole while possibly treating the wingtips with a Ketoconazole medication like Nizoral (over the counter) shampoo. Frankly, that's worth a try even without doing the microscopic work but you'd have to get the Itraconazole from your vet, so it'd have to be something that he'd be willing to try.

Pidgey


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## abluechipstock (Nov 26, 2010)

is it like a virus like french molt in budgies?


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## rfboyer (Jun 18, 2009)

@Pidgey - I will ask Dr Dorn about examining a bit of follicle. If fungus were the culprit, would it also be present in the partly formed multi-quills that were removed? Buddy preened a small one himself yesterday; it wasn't crusty like the others and it was easy to see that it was a cluster rather than an individual feather.

@abluechipstock - the cause of Buddy's malformed feathers is unknown at present, but the pattern of loss is different from French moult; Buddy's affected feathers are the outside long flights. The shorter inside ones seem to be OK. The problem seems to have begun a little over a year ago, when he was 3.5 - 4 years old (2006 band), and after that autumn moult his flights started to grow incorrectly.


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