Closed Aviary? - Page 2

07-16-2007, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MamaBird

Anybody know how this works in CA? (Re: labs & doing my own swabs / draws?)
Doing any kind of blood work yourself requires experience and the guidance of a real avian vet to start. I think it would be a bad idea to try this yourself. A bird can easily die of blood loss, it seems that this happened recently with blood drawn by the vet.
What should I test for?
Test for APV, PBFD, Chlamydia & Pacheco. These would normally be part of a well bird exam. Whatever the vet thinks best.

And what will I actually "know" from the results for each different disease???
Meaning is the test telling me the bird has been exposed? Is actively sick? Is potentially contageous, even if not sick itself?
Your vet will be able to advise any treatment or retesting after 30-90 days if there has been exposure, in the event of any positive.
I'd like to know the tests as well as the practical utility of each, so I can decide what is worth testing for.
Your vet will be the best person to give advice.
My AV doesn't test for specific diseases as part of his ($300 per bird) "well-birdie" get established visit. Maybe someone else needs to give advice here, but $300 seems a lotHe does a blood chemistry work up (inc CBC) as a general health screening tool, and then does more testing if the bird shows signs of illness in the blood work.

They've also told me that there are several diseases (Asper among them - I don't remember all the rest) where you can spend many hundreds if not thousands of dollars & still not completely 100 percent rule it out. Pstticosis (sp) is another. psittacosis is the chlamydia test.
Unless the bird has never even been exposed (unlikely in wild caught imports). But otherwise the bird will show antibodies for exposure. Which doesn't mean he has the disease at all. Asper is something I have no knowledge of, but it is a fungus in the airsacs & lungs of the bird, I am not sure that it transmits to other birds. PDD is something else, contageous to other birds and no test yet. Research is being done. Diagnosis at present is symtoms rather than a test I think. A vet is the best person to advise.

I know in cats, they can test (using a similar antibody titer type of test, same principle as used for the psitticosis test) for FIP. They at first destroyed thousands of cats, including much beloved pets, because they tested positive. Later they learned this only meant exposure, and that it was fairly common for a cat to have been exposed. It didn't mean the cat was able to pass the disease, much less actively sick. So all those animals were euthanized unnecessarily, because the test was so new they didn't realize how common exposure was. This is why retesting is needed, also a avian vet is the best person to ask

So I'm wary of just testing for everything possible. I'm also wary about rushing out & vaccinating either, due to a problem with the FIP vaccine when it was new. I lost a 5 yr old formerly totally healthy cat to that vaccine. My point is just that I've been burned on new technology before, so while I'm glad when new stuff comes out for birds, I'm still skeptical, till it has a proven track record.

But I'm also highly skeptical of the worth of "just" doing quarantine, without testing for disease. I know someone who (years back, before testing was available) lost his entire flock to PBFD. After having quarantined the carrier bird for 90 days! When you're dealing with slow moving diseases, you may not see much at all in the quarantine period. I am curious to how the entire flock was lost, unless they were very susceptible species or young birds, as older birds build up naturally acquired immunity, from the contact. A bird may test positive for the disease and then later test negative as it has "fought off" the disease. A carrier bird could cause the death of all babies however and not ever be actively sick itself. This is the story of a breeder who found pbfd in the aviary. Amazona endangered parrot breeding facility - Articles/Research

In the case of the PBFD, the breeder knew the bird had been exposed, but was unethical and didn't tell him. To me this highlights the extreme importance of the reputation of the breeder you're working with!
Yes it does, the truth of infection should always be made known

I'm not breeding. (At least not yet.) Right now, I'm partnering with a friend who does small animal rescue through her store (house rabbits, rats etc.) and I'm doing the bird side of our non-profit. We're doing rescue/rehab/foster-to-adopt type of work. So maintaining a "closed" aviary is pretty much out of the question. That would kinda defeat the purpose (which is to move birds through & find them new homes).

But obviously I still want to protect my own companion birds as best I can!!

I do have a separate room, at the opposite end of the house from my own bird room for fosters, new intakes etc. But if something is airborne or viral my own birds are still going to be at risk. (Just the size of viral particles as well as their inate hardiness makes it way harder to prevent physical transfer.) I know about changing clothes, showering etc. But realistically, viral particles can't be killed and are very hard to prevent from moving about.

Also, finances could eventually end up being an issue, if the testing was too extensive for each new bird coming through.
So I want to test (and quarantine too of course!) but I want to do it judiciously in a cost-effective manner. Advice?

I would think the best way to start a rescue would be with the help of an established rescue. There may be a lot of pitfalls of which we may not be aware. A true quarantine area would have separate air intake and a perfectly clean environment. Imagine if you took in a sick bird, he then left the area but the disease remained on walls, carpets etc

07-16-2007, 12:11 PM

Angie, you bring up very excellent points here.

I think rescues and those who do rescues are wonderful. The only problem I have is this: No matter how long you quarantine, PDD can be hiding in any one of those birds. Unfortunately, there is no test for PDD.... and it does not discriminate.

I spent many hours with Dr. Branson Ritchie picking his brain. I did a fund raiser for PDD research in June of last year, so I had the opportunity to sit down with him one-on-one. (Raised $12,000.00 and that covers about 1 month of costs! Can you believe that?)

The disease is baffling. Merely because one bird may come down with it does not mean that every bird exposed to it will likewise be infected. He actually did studies where two cockatiel parents were both positive for PDD, yet not all the offspring were positive.

I have a major phobia of this disease.

I have heard there is a lot of research on this disease abroad. Are you familiar with it? I have also heard that there may be somewhat of an advance on research on this disease abroad. Can you shed any light on that? Many people in the US think Dr. Ritchie is trying to find a "cure". Not true. He is trying to find a test and a vaccination.

(Sorry to hijack the thread - if the mods want to move this into its own category, feel free to do so). I just have a major thirst for knowledge about this horrible disease.

07-16-2007, 12:43 PM

Kathie, I don't know about any PDD research here. The possibility of a vaccine for papillomatosis exists, although not quite the same as PDD. Even with the vaccine, it will not help those birds already affected. Papillomatosis is a contact transmission, diagnosed by the cauliflower like structures in the throat and cloaca of the birds. I don't know if this is a problem in USA. It is mostly limited to South American birds.

One day I hope enough research is done, but I can quite believe the enormous amounts of money already spent.

A lot of research is being done on the testing, possible cure and vaccine for PBFD here as the disease has seriously damaged the Cape parrot population. The reason that South Africa is also working on a vaccine is that there are tiny differences between African pbfd and Australian pbfd. The cape parrot working group is currently trying to build a studbook with a view to trying to look after the captive gene pool. The wild population is heavily infected with pbfd, maybe to a point that the population is no longer sustainable in the wild. Every year they put up new nest boxes to try encourage breeding, a lot of the wild birds are not successful breeders. Poaching has also taken a toll of this population. Permits are required to keep in captivity.

07-16-2007, 12:50 PM

I'm curious about & frightened of (!) PDD too. Especially as there is no test.

As for established rescues, sadly there are good reasons we're trying to start something on our own in this geographic area. There's not much else in operation, and what there is going has major problems with it. There are quite a few people quietly doing it out of their own homes at this point, with connections to pet stores & so on, who refer birds to these idividuals rather than referring to the established rescue option.

My idea is to try to link up those private people and improve our collective resources, for starters. I also want to use a different model. Rather than "warehousing" birds in a central location I want to use the model you see with kittens where they foster them out to private homes. I want to get birds distributed out into the community - ideally to homes where there are no other birds, yet.

We will be running bird care classes for interested potential parronts, so they can get exposure to different types of birds, figure out what type they might want to share their home with and then have them foster (with the option to adopt) that type of bird, when a candidate becomes available. Our first "leg" of the venture is to set up a data base of interested humans & available birds. We're working on that part now. Everything would be foster-to-adopt. No outright adoptions as we want the birds to have a chance to "vote" on their new home, too!

We also want to offer the option to sign your bird up for future adoption. Often folks know in advance that they won't be keeping a bird in the family. If, for example you know you're moving & will be rehoming your bird, or you've inherited a bird from an elderly relative that you don't think you really want to keep, or it's clear that your aging relative is going to need to give up their bird, in the next year or two. We'd like to work out a way for these birds to go direct from one permanent home to another, rather than sitting in pet stores languishing, or in rescues, warehoused and out of sight of potential new owners. We would be working as a "match making" service in a sense, in these instances, so that all parties (old owners, birds & new prospective owners) could all meet each other & come to their own decisions.

I firmly believe that more birds end up "homeless" through poor planning than is necessary!

We do have the option to quarantine birds at my friend's pet supply store, in the same room where she keeps the rabbits & other small animals for adoption. It's a good facility - she has a washroom & small kitchen area. Contrary to what others asserted on another board there is no danger that birds would either contract disease from rabbits, hamsters etc nor pass something on to them. So this is a good option for where to quarantine our intakes, IMO.

What I need to know is, what do we test them for? What (in the experienced opinions here) is worth testing for, and what does the test tell you, exactly (exposure? illness? contagion?)

Also, for PDD we'd be looking for major symptoms there, right? (With the understanding that we still might not see anything much.) And also for subtle signs of a not-well birdie. Does taking a detailed history help with PDD? (One of my major beefs with the way things have been done locally till now is that rehomed rescues come with virtually zero history.) Would small details help identify a bird at risk?? What I'm asking basically is would there be a way to screen birds into higher versus lower risk categories for potentially having PDD? Or is it a total sleeper that just pops up suddenly w/out warning?