Hello everyone! The birds are fairly relaxed at the moment
but unfortunately we do have a little bit of circovirus or young bird sickness in the loft.
So I'm going to do some cleaning and then we'll come and talk about it. So I'll start up here
with the breeders. If you do just want to look at the young birds with the circovirus I'll leave a
timestamp in the description you can jump ahead to that. But as you guys really know circovirus
is a disease that mostly affects young birds, so over here with the old birds,
the breeders, there's not many health issues over here. We'll have a quick look at
the young birds. So I am just about finished breeding, these guys freshly hatched yesterday
so there's two little babies in there.
Another pair, a bit older.
This one's going to be really really pretty. This one's going to be a red reduced just like the dad,
so I'm pretty excited about that. I'm really looking forward to seeing her when she grows up.
And her brother, of course, is going to be nice and dark just like the mother.
I've got one more baby there. This will be the very last pair of eggs here, these ones were
laid on new year's eve and I wasn't actually going to let this pair go for one more round
but I thought if they lay before new year's day I'll let them keep the eggs and they did,
so this will be the last pair of babies for the 2021 breeding season. There is a little nest on the floor.
I think it was Mirsolav who asked about the eggs from the almond hen, I've actually put
them under this pair just because I didn't want them paired up outside. So these ones
hatch fairly soon and hopefully we get a little almond baby. Over here on this side
there's eggs under these two pairs, they should hatch soon. These are both sprinter pairs.
These babies are growing up and there's one last pair of eggs in here and then last of all
is these guys. And I'm not entirely sure what to do with these guys.
So if you remember these were for the long distance ring race
and this pair laid two eggs but unfortunately one of them got smashed. This guy decided to
fight them, so I put in another egg off the floor which was laid by the recessive red hen
and unfortunately their actual egg is not fertile, only the recessive red egg is, and I'm not entirely
sure if I want to raise one more recessive red baby. I'll have a think about it see what happens.
But that's the breeders, let's go and look at the young racing birds. So as I was saying we
do have a bit of circovirus or young bird sickness in this section. Most of the birds you can see look
pretty good, it's actually a disease that really only clinically affects about five percent of
the loft. So I have had three young birds die and there's two more outside, we'll have a look at
them in a second, who are fairly sick but the rest of them aren't too bad. The reason a lot of people
call it young bird sickness is because it's a virus that really attacks immature immune systems.
So because these are young birds they don't have a mature immune system they do have a bit of trouble
fighting it off. But one of the really insidious things about the disease is it actually suppresses
the immune system as well, which means they're far more susceptible to other diseases whilst they've
got circovirus. So I don't know if you can hear any sneezing in the background but there is a bit of
respiratory going through these birds and actually one of two of them actually have pigeon
pox as well which is a little bit frustrating because I haven't had a chance to vaccinate yet.
As far as treatment goes I'm not actually giving these birds any drugs for a couple of reasons.
First, it is a virus and antibiotic drugs just don't affect viruses, so that's not going to do anything.
The second is these both still need to develop their natural immune system. So a lot of people
get confused, a lot of the overseas viewers, because over here in Australia we do things
quite a bit differently. I'll explain quickly. So it's January now, it's the 6th of January I think,
and the first race is on the 28th of May I believe, so that's four and a half months away. These birds
are all about to moult, they've actually started dropping their flights already, they'll be finished
moulting around the end of March, beginning of April and that's when we'll start really putting in the
training work and start tossing them, and it's not until then that we'll actually start treating them
with antibiotics or cancer medications. Until then we really want to develop their natural
immune system. So the only treatment that the birds have been getting is some probiotics
and we'll have a look at that after we have a look at the young birds outside who are a bit sick.
So this little one is the sickest at the moment and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this one
dies unfortunately, which is a real shame because it's quite a well-bred pigeon. I'll see if I can
give you guys a look down the throat. So it's a bit hard to see at the moment but you might be able
to see the chunky mucus in the throat, that's not canker. So that isn't canker, it's actually a result
of the circovirus. Another thing you can see is that she's quite thin, and is passing a lot of bile.
That's because the disease suppresses the appetite so she's not eating very much,
and just in general she has quite a lack of vitality. It's mostly because like I said circovirus
suppresses the immune system which means not only do they have a viral infection they also
struggle to deal with the rest of any pathogens they might pick up, which for a young pigeon is a
lot of things! I'm really not sure how the circovirus got into the loft. I have bought a few new
race birds in from different sources but they all came from fairly reputable lofts, so I'm not sure
if it came in through that or I have had a lot of strays landing with the race birds as they have
been out flying recently so again it could have been that. But it's here, just got to deal with it.
I'm going to go inside and mix up some seed with the probiotics and I'll show you guys how I do that.
All right well first welcome to my kitchen! Here's the probiotics that I'm going to use.
I'm not sure if this particular brand is available overseas or if it's
just an Australian brand but the important thing is it's a bird origin, avian origin probiotic.
I know a lot of people use probiotics that are made for humans or for dogs or cats
but I think for the best results using one that's made for birds is pretty important.
So basically what probiotics are, are genuine living bacteria that live symbiotically inside the bird
and help with health and well-being and nutrition and digestion and all those kind of things, and
the different bacterial species are adapted to different animal species. So a bacteria
even like lactobacillis that's good for humans might not be great for birds. So these ones are
isolated from birds, made for birds, that's why I like to use these. I am also going to mix in some
vitamin and mineral powder onto the seed. It's good for the birds and especially when they're
not well like this it's definitely not going to hurt. So here's the grain for the day, they're
still in a fairly heavy mix it's mostly because I'm still breeding and this is the breeding mix.
I'm going to put a little bit of oil on the seed, so this is sunflower oil, you can also use peanut oil
any other light cooking oils really. So I'll just put a real little bit of oil on the seed
just enough to make it just a little bit wet
and then I'll go some other probiotic. That's a bit more than I usually use, it's just because
they are a bit sick at the moment they need the boost I'm putting a bit more on. And then
also the powder. And now I'll just give it a mix around. All right now we have a nice
probiotic and vitamin, mineral fortified food. We're going to give it to the young birds.
All right well I've just mixed up their feed I'm not going to let these guys out today for two
reasons. The first is because of their young bird sickness, I don't want to stress them too much I'm
just going to leave them in here and let them sort of get over their sickness, and the second is that
I've had a bit of trouble getting them back in recently so I'm going to use this time to my
advantage a little bit and try and train into the whistle a bit better whilst they're still inside.
I did also forget to mention that there's also probiotics in the water not just on the food.
And with the circovirus one thing to keep an eye out for is birds that don't want to eat,
so this fantail... I think there's one more over here, yes this opal hen. The birds that don't
want to eat are some of the ones that you do kind of want to worry about a little bit when
it comes to the circovirus, because like I said outside it does suppress the appetite a little bit.
Anyway well these guys are enjoying their food, you can click over here....
maybe over here and watch another video and I'll catch you guys in the next one!
By the way check out my pumpkins! Maybe I should start a gardening channel as well!
There's a nice big one in here somewhere, there's plenty of pumpkins growing!