Hello everyone
In January I took in a young fledgling with watery eyes and cold-like symptoms. He made wheezing sounds while breathing and sneezed from time to time. I tried to give it vitamins and cleaned the nostrils out frequently, because there was more and more yellow crusts appearing. The inside of its beak appeared clean though. Then after a few days there appeared yellow mucus in its upper beak, too. I immediately thought of canker, but upon gently trying, the mucus was easily removable without any bleeding - which I thought was not typical for Trichomonas, so I ended up thinking it had to be a bacterial respiratory infection. At the same time one of its sinuses started swelling. I applied some betadine ointment externally and swabbed his mouth with Lugol's. The swelling went back, but then the other side started to swell instead. I brought it to the vet as it grew obvious that the problem wouldn't solve itself. The vet diagnosed mycoplasma, without a lab test though. I then gave it Baytril for 5 days, without any improvement - on the contrary, the bad side of its head started to swell even more, to the extent where it deformed its beak (kind of stretched out the corner of its mouth to one side), and the "good" side started to swell again, too, but less extreme. I brought it to the vet again and they took a probe to send to the lab. Then we had to wait quite some time for the results, in the meantime we tried to treat with Doxycyline. Again there was no improvement, but it didn't seem to get much worse either. As the results came, the lab had found various bacteria but no mycoplasma. But, and that made me a little angry, they didn't test for Trichomonas. The vet insisted on giving him more Doxy and we waited another week without improvement, only this time it got a little worse and I was really feeling bad for the little fellow, as the big swelling must have hurt or at least been uncomfortable. It was also sneezing often and had watery discharge from both eyes and nose. The vet then decided to cut the swellings open to see what was inside and remove it. That luckily went well, it had absolutely no problems with waking up after the surgery and it was quite obviously feeling great without the swollen face - it even started to fly and gained weight (it had not been able to feed on its own due to blocked sight). The wounds healed incredibly fast, the one of the better side was gone after only 3 days, the other was a bit bigger but grew smaller each day. I continued to give Doxy as the vet prescribed. They also sent another probe of the stuff they took out of its sinuses to the lab. This time they did test for and found Trichomonas, and even before the results came I had insisted on stopping the Doxy and giving Metronidazole instead, as I had a strong feeling that it must be sinus canker, since the antibiotics didn't seem to work and the swelling on the bad side slowly started to reappear already. The vet ordered Gambamix (Carnidazole, 10mg per pill) as well, as they were not too keen on giving Metro - they said it was very bad tasting and also didn't have a proper med meant for pigeons. I managed to re-open the remaining wound on his bad side (the crust came right off) and the cavity below had already filled with new yellowish mucus. I tried to pull out as much as I could with a pair of tweezers, gently of course, because it seemed to hurt it a little... I then gave Metro (a med called Eradia for dogs, 125mg/ml) 0.3ml for 7 days (vet had prescribed 0.1ml for 5 days, but I read about far higher dosage for pigeons so I thought "kill it now for sure, or we only provoke resistance"), then the Gambamix arrived just in time and I did a follow-up with that for another 3 days (Gambamix comes in pill form, it was prescribed one pill per day). To my big disappointment, as I re-opened the wound again today, because it seemed a little more swollen again, there has been new mucus forming, this time pure white.
Soooo. What the hell is this stuff? I'm out of ideas, but I don't want to give up on the little guy. We've been trough so much already...
Here are a few picture of the little fellow:
When the swelling first appeared:
![Bird Chicken Comb Galliformes Phasianidae]()
![Bird Beak Chicken Carnivore Fawn]()
When it got much much worse:
![Bird Gesture Beak Feather Comb]()
![Bird Hand Beak Wood Feather]()
Shortly after the surgery:
![Bird Eye Chicken Phasianidae Beak]()
![Hand Eye Jaw Gesture Finger]()
A few days ago, after I had re-opened and cleaned out the wound:
![Bird Water Beak Bird of prey Falconiformes]()
![Bird Water Eye Beak Rock dove]()
In January I took in a young fledgling with watery eyes and cold-like symptoms. He made wheezing sounds while breathing and sneezed from time to time. I tried to give it vitamins and cleaned the nostrils out frequently, because there was more and more yellow crusts appearing. The inside of its beak appeared clean though. Then after a few days there appeared yellow mucus in its upper beak, too. I immediately thought of canker, but upon gently trying, the mucus was easily removable without any bleeding - which I thought was not typical for Trichomonas, so I ended up thinking it had to be a bacterial respiratory infection. At the same time one of its sinuses started swelling. I applied some betadine ointment externally and swabbed his mouth with Lugol's. The swelling went back, but then the other side started to swell instead. I brought it to the vet as it grew obvious that the problem wouldn't solve itself. The vet diagnosed mycoplasma, without a lab test though. I then gave it Baytril for 5 days, without any improvement - on the contrary, the bad side of its head started to swell even more, to the extent where it deformed its beak (kind of stretched out the corner of its mouth to one side), and the "good" side started to swell again, too, but less extreme. I brought it to the vet again and they took a probe to send to the lab. Then we had to wait quite some time for the results, in the meantime we tried to treat with Doxycyline. Again there was no improvement, but it didn't seem to get much worse either. As the results came, the lab had found various bacteria but no mycoplasma. But, and that made me a little angry, they didn't test for Trichomonas. The vet insisted on giving him more Doxy and we waited another week without improvement, only this time it got a little worse and I was really feeling bad for the little fellow, as the big swelling must have hurt or at least been uncomfortable. It was also sneezing often and had watery discharge from both eyes and nose. The vet then decided to cut the swellings open to see what was inside and remove it. That luckily went well, it had absolutely no problems with waking up after the surgery and it was quite obviously feeling great without the swollen face - it even started to fly and gained weight (it had not been able to feed on its own due to blocked sight). The wounds healed incredibly fast, the one of the better side was gone after only 3 days, the other was a bit bigger but grew smaller each day. I continued to give Doxy as the vet prescribed. They also sent another probe of the stuff they took out of its sinuses to the lab. This time they did test for and found Trichomonas, and even before the results came I had insisted on stopping the Doxy and giving Metronidazole instead, as I had a strong feeling that it must be sinus canker, since the antibiotics didn't seem to work and the swelling on the bad side slowly started to reappear already. The vet ordered Gambamix (Carnidazole, 10mg per pill) as well, as they were not too keen on giving Metro - they said it was very bad tasting and also didn't have a proper med meant for pigeons. I managed to re-open the remaining wound on his bad side (the crust came right off) and the cavity below had already filled with new yellowish mucus. I tried to pull out as much as I could with a pair of tweezers, gently of course, because it seemed to hurt it a little... I then gave Metro (a med called Eradia for dogs, 125mg/ml) 0.3ml for 7 days (vet had prescribed 0.1ml for 5 days, but I read about far higher dosage for pigeons so I thought "kill it now for sure, or we only provoke resistance"), then the Gambamix arrived just in time and I did a follow-up with that for another 3 days (Gambamix comes in pill form, it was prescribed one pill per day). To my big disappointment, as I re-opened the wound again today, because it seemed a little more swollen again, there has been new mucus forming, this time pure white.
Soooo. What the hell is this stuff? I'm out of ideas, but I don't want to give up on the little guy. We've been trough so much already...
Here are a few picture of the little fellow:
When the swelling first appeared:
When it got much much worse:
Shortly after the surgery:
A few days ago, after I had re-opened and cleaned out the wound:
