Sick wood pigeon: help required

[poppisue]

Hi All,

I found a fledgling wood pigeon in the road on saturday, brought it home and have been keeping warm and feeding softbill food. There were no obvious injuries to the bird anywhere and the bird was doing very well, walking around, attempting small bits of flight etc.

Suddenly today is Tuesday and I get up to feed her and she has no balance. I noticed her head with a twitch like a shudder the last few days like she was cold. A sudden shudder then her head would twitch, but there's no way it was cold.

Now she seems to have no balance and keeps tipping over on her side when trying to walk.

Please any help would be so appreciated. I hope this sweet little critter doesnt die.

Also I was just holding it in a warm cloth and it almost went into like seisures. Head tilted all the way back and flapping wings. This is getting really worrying.

[poppisue]

Well, its with deep sadness I say only about 1 hour has passed since i posted my issue in this forum and my birdie has died. She went into what looked to be a heavy seisure and then Im pretty sure she is dead. I have wrapped her up and giving time as to make sure she has passed. im hoping that she is not 100% paralysed. I dont know how you could tell. Her eyes are open, but her legs are stiff and back. Im so sad. I thought I was doing the best I could for her. I spoke to a wildlife rescue guy each day since I found her, he deals specifically with pigeons, but he lived way to far away to pick her up. We discussed what it could have been and we believe she may of had PMV. I only had her 3 days. Im hoping that the stress I put her under didnt increase her risk of dying. Im reading that dehydration and stress can increase the mortality rate of a bird with PMV. I tried to get water into her. Even mixed warm water with sugar. She took a small bit, but also I mixed water into her food to soften it. So I would have to think she was getting water. Another thing I noticed is that yesterday she seemed fine, this morning, she felt extremely light like she has lost all her weight.

I have other pet birds here and I have not exposed them to this bird. Hopefully they will be allright. I've been disinfecting everything and washing my hands etc. I've thrown out the bits of clothing I used to keep her warm.

Again if anyone has any ideas about what has happened here, I would be grateful as I was totally un aware of symptoms of this disease and now I know. But unforunately, it's too late for this precious little soul.

[pdpbison]

Pretty hard to say.


Head injury...

Starvation/Dehydration on top of any illness or injury, can cause heavy co-ordination problems...

Salmonella...

If they are going to die of PPMV, it is usually a syndrome of wilting and a shut down digestive system, rather than one of torticolis...but, the Virus can effect different Organs in different individuals.

In the Wild, most adult Pigeons who get symptomatic PPMV with co-ordination issues, most likely die of starvation and dehydration, and or are on their way to that when we find them.

Secondary illnesses can opportune also from their weakened system.

[poppisue]

I wouldnt think it was starvation or dehydration, as she was doing really well yesterday and the previous couple of days, even attempting a little fly. She was being fed the best softbill food CeDe which you buy in europe and being kept warm and I was looking after her. Then just overnight, she went from perfect to seisure like activity loss of balance and coordination and then death within a few hours.

It was so distressing to watch! Im so sad. This was a fledgling that I found in the road on Saturday. I know she had to have fallen a very long way to the ground as the trees there are very very high up. But, all that said, she seemed perfect and fairly spritely. With the exception that in the three days, she never vocalised to begged for food, I had to open her beak and feed her.

[Feefo]

It does sound very bad.

Put her in a cat carrier and prop her up with two rolled hand towels.

Try giving her calcium and D3 supplements and some Brewers Yeast.

Check him for ticks, specially around the head.

Something similar happened to my rescue flrdgeling woodie after a day or two in my care.

He had a wing injury which the vet bandaged and he was fine, then two days later he started falling over on to his side. He couldn't keep on his feet at all and one leg seemed to be giving way. But he wasn't pulling his neck back.

I put him in a cat carrier propped up and with his food right under his beak and gave him some liquid calcium (he was already on synulox) . He started to improve immediately.

When I took him to the vet I told her what I had done and she said the calcium is a good idea. He is back on his feet now.

Paramyxovirus isn't all that common in wood pigeons, but whenever there are symptoms that could be PMV you should keep the pigeon isolated from other birds for six weeks. My local sanctuary had an outbreak of something that killed several birds, even garden birds, recently...they and the vet attributed the cause to PMV but I am not so sure...but there is certanly something very bad going around (this is in Norfolk).

[harryf200]

When I ran a small pigeon rescue, I had several feral pigeons (and one Blackbird) come to me in that condition. All bar one died, and he came out of it (after intensive nursing) with a damaged nervous system. Over many months that aspect recovered to some extent but he was never in a condition suitable for release - for example, he could not pick up a single seed of grain - he had to be offered a bowl full so when he aimed and missed at a particular seed he'd get another one instead. At first, he couldn't fly at all, and then he could a little but was unable to fly the right way up or steer in any direction; but eventually, he was able to fly the right way up and his steering got better but never perfect. He lived a long while until a b####d cat took him when I was exercising the disabled birds in my garden ... he flew "out of the way" but in the wrong direction ...

[Feefo]

If you are talking about PPMV then it is very bad luck that all your affected ferals died. In 10 years I have had one feral pigeon die duting the course of the virus and that was due to a concurrent mycoplasma infection. Of my current 30+ PPMV survivors some have residual neurological damage and some have relapsed, but two have been healthy and survived for over 10 years.

The woodie that I described in my previous post didn't have PPMV , but his legs and his wing were injured so he can't fly and he walks with a waddle.