[EllenJ]

Hi all,
I have a baby pigeon who weighs about 140 grams and am not sure how much Corid to give it for coccidiosis. I've been all over the internet, and the dosing is for adding to drinking water, but this baby pigeon is not self-feeding, so I have to dose it by mouth since it cannot drink on it's own. I have the Corid 9% solution for calves. I had gone to the Corid website and they have a dosing calculator, but the results didn't quite make sense once I calculated them.
Has anyone out there dosed a baby pigeon during the hand feeding process? If so, did you use a tiny amount of the full strength (9% solution), added to their formula, or did you dilute the solution according to directions on the bottle and then dose accordingly? And if so, how much?
Thanks for any guidance!
Ellen

 

[Jay3]

Why do you think he has cocci?

 

[EllenJ]

Re; coccidia

The baby arrived very sick, vomiting, and no appetite, with wings hanging down, dehydrated. I started by hydrating him, thinking it was just dehydration and sour crop. But he remained severely dehydrated, even so. I then wondered about bacteria or protozoa infection, so I tried giving Metronidazole for Trich and I gave Baytril in case of bacterial infection. I checked to be sure both drugs are OK to be given together. I also treated for sour crop with a baking soda/water solution and gave a bit of Fluconazole, but didn't want to over-medicate the baby, so I only gave the fluconazole for one dose. Crop motility was fine. I gave the Metronidazole and Baytril for a few days with no effect. He did benefit from lots of hydration, but was still sick. I was mystified, and then last evening I saw some blood in the droppings. I ran out first thing in the morning today and bought Corid and gave him a diluted dose to start with (to get something in his system to fight any protozoa). He seems already a bit better, and no more blood in the droppings since giving the dose, but that is likely coincidence, since I cannot imagine Corid would work that quickly to begin alleviating the blood symptom. He's very, very droopy, very weak, and wants to drink a lot. So I'm giving warm (105 degree) diluted formula and extra fluids before bed at night. Hope that helps.

 

[Jay3]

Sounds as though you have already over medicated the poor thing. Shooting in the dark and trying many different things, and then giving them for a couple of days, you are just messing up his whole system. When you do that, you are just helping the bacteria, trich, or whatever, to build an immunity to the drug. Then when you actually do need to use that drug on the bird at some point, it isn't going to work.
I would have to look at different things. First where did you get this baby? How old is he? What were the circumstances?
Then you look at the symptoms, and try to figure out what sickness or disease goes with the symptoms. Now look at what would be the most common things that these guys would normally have. The most common would probably be canker. I would have treated with Metronidazole for 7 to 10 days. You said "baby", so the dose would be 30 mg once daily for the 7 to 10 days. I usually do 10. If after a few days, he didn't appear to be getting any better, I would probably add the Baytril, once daily for 10 days. The dose would of course depend on the weight of the bird. He should receive probiotics to build his gut bacteria up, and the different drugs are only wreaking havoc with whatever good gut bacteria he has. Do you have probiotics? If not then giving a small amount in his beak of yogurt with the live bacteria in it.
Can you post a picture of the bird?

 

[EllenJ]

sick bird

The baby came from a barn, and had been found out of the nest too early, lying in manure. The young girl that found it said, "It's sick". I wondered why she thought it was sick, but then I noticed it had very little appetite and vomited up whatever formula I gave it. I gave the bird Baytril and Metronidazole for over a week with zero improvement at all. With many illnesses, one should see some degree of improvement within that amount of time. This based on medicating literally hundreds of birds over the years.

 

[Jay3]

I'm just going by what you had said. You said you gave the Metro and Baytril for a few days. And some things like canker can take longer. I don't know the dosage for corrid, but for individual dose I use Coximed, which is Diclazuril. You give one pill, then 10 days later you give another pill.