UPDATE - "Help, my pigeon may be dying"!

[feralpigeon]

BTW, yeast and bacteria are a couple of things that come to mind that can cause gas in addition to something more structural.

fp

[jazaroo]

What is catching my eye is the dose of Baytril, .04cc of a 50mg/mL solution is around 2mg, if my math is right, this seems quite low, Cathy are you sure this dose is correct?

Ron

Thanks fp. Cathy to be as accurate as possible, would you have an exact weight for your little one from the vet visit or be able to weigh her with accuracy?

[feralpigeon]

Originally Posted by jazaroo

What is catching my eye is the dose of Baytril, .04cc of a 50mg/mL solution is around 2mg, if my math is right, this seems quite low, Cathy are you sure this dose is correct?

Ron

Good one, Ron.

fp

[Trees Gray]

Hi Cathy,

I am so sorry to hear about Ruffles, she is a lovely bird.

Since she has had this for some time, her immune system is probably not working at peak performance, and you should try to use every healing product you can to help her, since it isn't quite clear what is going on.

In addition to what was recommended, you should give her a garlic capsule once a day, the soft gel kind or, Allicidin, for building immune reserves. Echinacea drops, about 1/4 of a human dose, the kind that is alcohol free-for building the immune system.. A drop of colloidal silver for infection, and a drop of organic Neem oil for fungus and inflammation.

I wouldn't even hesitate to give her some probiotics, especially in the form of kefir for any yeast problem.

[Trees Gray]

I will link the two threads together.

[Pidgey]

Well, if she had an air sac that was inflated and it wasn't venting, it might be possible to at least evacuate the bulk of the air with a small hypodermic needle inserted into it to give her more breathing room. If you had a baseline weight (before she got sick) and compared it to the weight today, you might get a better idea whether or not the increased abdominal volume was due to a solid mass versus an air bubble. An X-Ray would also probably tell the tale on that one as it would either show as a relative darkness for a gas-filled cavity or as a relative lightness for a more solid mass.

If there is a whistle, then a nebulization treatment course might be in order like a Gentamicin/Saline mix.

Pidgey

[Maggie-NC]

Hi Cathy

I am so very sorry Ruffles is sick. She is beautiful.

I'm in a quandary about what to tell you. If the thread you mentioned is about the pigeon we had with what we believe to be air sac mites, then you can put a drop of Ivermectin on her neck to treat them. We also sprayed ours a few times with Scalex. Our pigeon never seemed sick but upon any exertion did open mouth breathing pretty badly. After several treatments he seemed fine and is still doing well in the aviary. There was never any abdominal swelling.

And, I hate to even mention this but we had an elderly pigeon, Gracie, who was over 12 years old. Gracie also lived in our home, never in the aviary. She had symptoms of lethargy, weight gain, and a swollen abdomen. She sometimes acted like she was confused and didn't know where she was. After a few days of this, we took her to the vet who decided to aspirate the abdomen to at least draw the fluid out and make her more comfortable while other tests were run. When she drew out the fluid it was bloody. Our vet said that in all cases that she had seen like that it indicated cancer. She stated she would not recover from this and could suffer a great deal. We agreed to euthanasia and I stayed with Gracie until the end. This vet, in the 14 or more years we have taken birds to her, has only recommended euthanasia, at best, more than 3-4 times so I trust her judgment. It was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through because Gracie was truly a member of the family for a long time.

At best, all we can do on the forum is guesstimate and share experiences. I would take Ruffles back to the vet and see if he will aspirate some of the contents of the abdomen to see what is going on. I would be interested in knowing how he determined that it is an air sac that is inflated, or, some other swelling in the abdomen. I am just not that familiar with all the locations of air sacs in pigeons.

Cathy, I decided to post this on the forum rather than return your e-mail to keep the "flow" of the thread intact.

Please try not to worry so much but I know that is almost impossible for you right now.

[feralpigeon]

Cathy emailed me w/the weight of her bird, Ruffles:

the vet weighed her at 427 grams!!

fp

[Maggie-NC]

Wonder what the average weight of archangels is?

[Pidgey]

That ain't air. Archangels are said to be smaller than the standard feral in THE PIGEON by Levi.

Pidgey

[feralpigeon]

Originally Posted by Lady Tarheel

Wonder what the average weight of archangels is?

I have two, Maggie as you know. One is the light bronze like Ruffles and the other is the darker bronze.

Ozzie the lighter colored one who looks just like Ruffles is about 350 grams, my other, Harriett is right around 300 grams.

Ozzie appears much larger than Harriett.

fp

[Pidgey]

Pattie Cakers had the respiratory thing, too, when she had her problem a year-and-a-half ago:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showpo...9&postcount=15

Pidgey

[jazaroo]

Hi All and Cathy,

I received a PM from Cathy with Ruffle's exact weight, it is 427 grams. Although this weight is in the range of "normal", the possibility can't be ruled out that some of it may be from ectopic eggs, previously mentioned, or other mass. However, even given that possibility, the 2mg dose of Baytril in my opinion is far too low, I recently had a hen with a suspected gastric infection and my avian vet prescribed 10mg BID (twice a day) and she weighed 320 grams.

So Cathy I am going to suggest two things, the first is that we dilute down the concentration of the Baytril you have. You have 50mg/mL and the problem as I see it, with no offense to your vet, is that he deals usually with larger animals and this is the dose concentration he uses on them. In all the years I have been prescribed Baytril from avian vets it has been in the 20-25mg/mL range. The problem is that even if the dose you are giving was correct, and I have already said I feel it is too low, at .04mL this is such a small concentrated dose that if you dribble even a little or the bird shakes its head, a good part of the dose can go missing.

The second is that we increase the dose fourfold, to about 8mg BID (twice a day). Now back to the diluting, if you draw a dose now of .16cc and then draw roughly the same amount of water you will end up with about .30cc in the syringe. Draw the plunger back 3/4 way and move it up and down to mix this well, then slowly bringing it to the top and then dose Ruffles. This way if a drop goes errant, the bird will still receive the majority of the medicine it needs. I based this dosing, which is slightly conservative, on the metabolic dosing formula provided by Dr. Dorrestein in Avian Medicine (2000) where based on this bird's weight, I worked out the Baytril dose to be 9.43mg BID.

Cathy, please make sure you double check the information on the concentration and vet prescribed dose is/was accurate.

Hope this helps a little for now,

Ron

[Charis]

When I have a really sick bird that has been prescribed Baytril, I often start the treatment with the injectable form { first two to three doses only because it will bruse] especially when their sysyem is moving slowly. For those of you that haven't done injections and feel uncomfortable with them, it's really easy once some one shows you how. I used to feel squeemish at the thought.
Injectable Baytril is good to have on hand especially for those of us that rehab a lot of birds.

[feralpigeon]

Thanks for giving Cathy a more realistic dose rate, Ron. She could probably
front load the dosing since Ruffles doesn't really have the level in the blood
stream that she should, meaning to double Ron's dose rate for the first 24 hours,
I think some vets will do this when prescribing sometimes for 48 hours.
Still want to add that if going the antibiotic route it would likewise
be great to add Flagyl to Baytril to reach a broader rangeof organisms.


fp