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Pigeon Illness on our syndicate


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Has anybody else noticed any Pigeons on their land/permissions with symptoms that I can only think is (I'll have ago at spelling it) Trichomanosis (Is that right). On saturdya on our first shoot we found several birds (Pigeons only) over different drives that were on the floor, looking dopey, some fly covered, some couldn't fly. Those we could get near, we put out of their misery, others crawled under brambles etc.

 

Is this symptoms of the Trichomywhatsitcalled? We have bountiful quantities of fallen acorns, and I remember reading beginning of the year in one of the shooting mags, that the bacteria is found on acorns that have fallen and been on the ground for some time and that this naturally occuring gut bacteria in birds is harmfukl if the quantity gets too much.

 

We have found no other signs of any other birds like this and hope it is the above trichothingy occuring in the pigeons and that it will not the pheasants or other bird quarry species we have on the estate.

 

SS

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Sounds to me like they've poisoned themselves by gourging on the acorns which contain alot of tannin (I think)?

 

As for lumbering around looking dopey, I think you might with half your body weight in your throat :lol:

 

Seriously though its amazing how many acorns they can gourge in one sitting, I shot one on Saturday with 21 good sized acorns in its crop :good: How the thing manage to fly was a mystery to me.

 

In an old copy of the shooting times some bloke sent a pic in of a pigeon with 37 acorns in its crop :lol:

 

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Has anybody else noticed any Pigeons on their land/permissions with symptoms that I can only think is (I'll have ago at spelling it) Trichomanosis

 

 

Yes it happens a lot with big falls of mast or acorns. The birds pass it on when they get the latter stages of the disease when the throat starts to close and the pigeon, desperate to eat, just mouths the acorn/mast and the next pigeon to eat it then picks up the disease.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi,

Yes Trichomoniasis or as it is otherwise known as 'canker' is a disease that is common in wood pigeons.

It manifests itself as a creamy white growth in the throats of infected birds. It is non contagious to

humans but very contagious between between pigeons in their saliva so most commonly spread from parent birds to

their squabs(babies).

 

As the growth develops it means that the birds cannot feed themselves as the throat

gets blocked. Sometimess it affects the airway and the birds cannot breath properly. It is very easily cured with a one

off antibiotic tablet.

 

The birds you found would be emaciated and thin. Therefore possibly dopey due to starvation.

One way to check for sure is to open and look down the throat for the tell tale white lumps.

 

The disease sounds pretty disturbing to us but is easily treatable if the bird is not too far gone so there was no need

to destroy the birds and you could take them to an animal sanctuary or to a bird re-habber where they may be treated in future.

 

Hope it helps

D

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The other possible solution is that around that time of year there are loads of little blue slug pellets around. If the slug pellets co-incide with rape drilling (little blue seeds, they seem to have some coating on them these days) then the pigeon are posoning themselves with these.

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Well only two posts when I originally posted in 2007 and then bang, thread goes ballistic :lol:

 

In all fairness, the information she gave was good, I just don't think she quite realised what site she was on :good: . At least I now know when I see it again, I can first look down its throat and then administer first aid, but no tongues as I wouldn't want to pass it on to the chicks. :good:

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Just for the record I do not shoot pigeons or any other birds. I rescue and rehab them. But I read your thread via google and thought that you at least deserve an informed response.

D

Thankyou Donna, it took balls to come on here & give us this information considering what we all do in our spare time :lol::good::good:

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