Disinfectants and Avian Illness Protocols
Questions and answers… Disinfectants
We get many—many emails weekly---daily we can receive as
many as 40-50 emails about something concerning birds, be
it, breeding, diets, cleaning around birds and many other
subjects, Over our 35 years as professional aviculturist and
as one of the largest breeding and research centers on
several species, especially yellow naped amazons and other
amazons, These years of disciplines have given us a hard
earned knowledge and database on several subjects. One of
these subjects is disease control, safety and cleaning with
disinfectants. and not least expertise.
Now the
question from an email, To Royal Bird Company…I have a
question, the
question is about cleaning around birds and
keeping diseases under control, I did see you had wrote and
published an article on your website about this very virus,
PACHECOS virus…and i have read it and i would like more
info. We have had some problems with this virus recently. I
do tell you this we are not newbies
and I am the
president of my bird club, I have taken classes on vet tech,
I am the local go to person for info on bird breeding, and
like you guys there are Royal Bird Co, we are experts in
breeding and keeping our birds healthy.
We purchased a
couple birds from a local bird mart or some would call it a
bird show in Georgia and bought some at a exotic animal sale
in Texas,
The birds bought at the bird mart in Georgia
were 3 pair of nanday conures, a pair of mitred conures, 2
pair patagonian conures in Texas and we purchased a baby
yellow naped also at the sale in Texas, The sale was located
in south Texas. There were maybe a dozen baby yellow napes
for sale there. We purchased the birds in Texas in December
2016; we purchased the others in Georgia in March of 2017
being just a couple of months after the
sale in Texas.
WELL, the first problem soon started within a few weeks
after the sale in Texas, the yellow naped got a runny nose
and started throwing up and stopped eating, and few other
birds got sick as well and our vet checked it and started
treating for Chlamydia with doxycycline and told us to use
it for 45 days while we was fighting that, we noticed within
a week of purchase of the birds in march, we saw a few birds
die overnight with
no symptoms, these were birds we have
had for years, the birds we purchased the nandays and
conures never got sick or showed any problems, we noticed
the birds we had right next to the nandays a pair of African
greys one died, the next couple days another bird from a
pair of cockatoos died right down the line of cages from the
conures. In total we lost 14 birds and none of the conures
died. Our vet tested and told us we had one of the most
deadly virus one can have in parrots, Avian Pachecos. We
were told to separate and clean up, we used a disinfectant
called Nolvasan to wash cages, and used dishwashing liquids
to clean our dishes daily.
We kept this up for almost 6 months, but little by
little almost all our birds we had before the purchases
died, having left only the conures and the yellow naped baby
was saved and was always in the home. But, my whole family
has had
the flu ever since. My doctor told me that my
family has been exposed to Chlamydia and the flu symptoms
come from that, my whole family has now been taking
doxycycline as well, we are exhausted and scared, why has
this happened? What more could we have done? Should be
concerned about the babies and birds we sold to customers
during this illness? Any info can help, thank you..from M.
Sneckett, Houston, Texas.
Our answer:
Hello, well
it seems that you indeed have a mess and a dangerous one at
that,
A danger to your birds that you already had and a
real danger to your family and to be blunt, you will not
like what I am going to say.., It was all your fault, and I
mean that in an almost respectful way, You said you had
birds for years and said you knew about the care of birds
and you thought of your self as a professional and expert,
I must ask you, you said you was an expert,,,an expert
in what?
I am shocked by your comparison to what we do
here, and I am a little insulted.
And you actually
continued to sell baby birds and other birds from your
premises. You all the while knowing that a sickness was
breaking out. Would you think we or any expert would do
that? So, for your self labeled
expert remark, I say, BULL,,,,
How is it, that if this expertise you have is true,
why and how could you continue to sell? you had no knowledge
of quarantine, no sense of what you were buying and no sense
that you should never ever purchase at these places, no
sense of testing before exposing to your other birds and
possibly other peoples birds and absolutely no sense of
disinfectants and no sense on how or what they do and no
knowledge of how to clean. NO basic knowledge what soever.
Maybe the lack of common sense things it’s not all
your fault, as many times its not. Many rely on their old
time veterinarians for advice and help. A real responsible
aviculturist (expert) should research, learn and put into
place several protocols that can help you save your flock.
Some vets just do not have this basic knowledge pertaining
to avian species, they mostly studied and learned about dogs
and cats, cattle, horses and farm animals and other mammals,
The same cleaners, disinfectants and protocols one puts into
place for those would not be the same as parrots and birds.
Many veterinarians call them selves avian vets, but it only
takes a few extra courses during their vet school but that
does not make them experts either, as many times they do not
actually see enough real live clients to get the experience.
Your vet seemed spot on when it came to testing
after the sickness started both times, you did not mention
if he or she instructed you on HOW to separate, HOW to
clean, HOW to disinfect. Cleaning and disinfecting is 2
entirely different things, I will not pretend to have a
chemistry background when it comes to chemicals but our
experience and animal science studies and our own research
programs have helped with some basic knowledge on keeping
things clean and what to use for disinfectants around birds.
First thing is this, you most likely brought pachecos in
with the conures, well known fact, those species , nandays,
Patagonians conures are well known carriers, pachecos will
be present in their system but only spreads to other birds
once stress reactivate the shedding of the virus, moving
birds is stressful. I would bet that the birds were what I
call hot birds when you purchased them, meaning they was
shedding the virus in their droppings when you put them into
your cages and then it was just a matter of time.
This virus . avian pachecos which is a herpes virus that
attacks the liver and fast, is very lethal and fast, the
only way to deal with it, prevention, as no cure is
available, its fast, and it is a killer, many times, it
kills one bird in a pair and leaves the other. But it will
and can wipe out the entire aviary.
But you did
everything wrong, from the start, you should have never ever
purchased at open air markets, sales, bird marts, shows. Its
just not where you would find quality safe birds and ANY
expert would know that. Its actually the place most breeders
go to get rid of birds that they do not want for one reason
or another. I mean come on think about it, common sense
says,,,even if the birds were not already a carrier, how
many people and how many other birds did they come in
contact with at those sales and bird marts?. Was other sick
birds at the show or bird mart? Who knows…but in any event,
after you brought them home, you put them right beside the
birds you already had, The birds should have been
quarantined, BUT, even that would have never showed up
anything if they was just carriers and its very hard to test
birds that are only carriers and not actually sick, so that
would have not helped you. And the worse of all, you
continued to sell your illness to unsuspecting customers,
SHAME on you..
But the simplest thing is this, I tell
you the facts,,,without me sounding pretentious and
arrogant, well maybe it does sound that way, but I care not,
I say WHY would you purchase such cheap birds when you were
owners and breeders of greys, cockatoos, macaws, etc. Not to
say that those conures are not great little birds, but if I
was a breeder of conures and was willing to take such a
chance, then I would only have that. Some breeders are very
successful in keeping many different species on the premises
including the conures, but they keep them separated and use
very strict time consuming protocols when feeding and
maintaining, would I do it? No, I have enough to worry about
and I
would never allow those on or around my property,
period.
I have found that these cheaper species tend
to be kept and bred by people that seem to not have a lot of
financial resources. Therefore these birds will not be in
the best or kept in the best of situations for good long
term health. Its just a matter of common sense thinking,
it’s a hard way to look at it, but its fact. If it’s cheap
to purchase and replace, most times they will not be taken
care of correctly, sorry, but true. Its not the birds fault,
it’s the bad bird keeper.
Now for the disinfecting or
cleaning that you did the first thing. It was mostly just
worthless and was a factor in spreading the problem. For
cleaning bowls, you used dish washing detergent, not that
bad if you had been then dipping them in an effective
disinfectant, but, you used Nolvasan, and this is a
chlorahexidine disinfectant compound that comes by many
brands. In our experience, it’s worthless and many bird
owners and breeders for some reason are overly confident in
the product, this product has very little uses around the
birds and aviaries, it just does not kill all things,
especially pachecos and other viruses. I think this product
got its start in the breeders aviaries as it was readily
available in the past and thought to be non toxic to a
degree, and its main use was in the cattle and chicken
industry.
But one that uses it around parrots and
gets overly secure in
thinking it’s such a great product,
these people will in time sooner or later suffer from
problems as you have done. We actually used the product over
28 years ago, as it was the disinfectant of choice of vets
and birders in the USA. We kept our hand feeding equipment
soaking in a solution of the nolvasan when not in use, we
seem to have, as many other breeders did have a series of
Candida problems, this is a very common and easily treatable
yeast infection of the baby birds crops, the antifungal
nyastatin is very effective and easy to use. However
veterinarians just shrugged it off as “Oh Its Normal” to
have Candida in hand feeding babies from time to time as its
not normally life threatening, it was just common to hear
about it all the time. It was just accepted. Well, we were
not and
still not the type to actually accept something
that seems to be so wrong.
We had the solution
tested, just after one 24 hour use of the solution of
nolvasan; the solution was teaming with Candida albicans,
YEAST. The solution seemed to grow it. When the organic
material was introduced into the solution off the equipment
it actually started the growth. And just by rinsing it off
and using the equipment was the cause of the problems we
were seeing in our nursery. The very day we stopped using
it, we was treating 4 baby macaws for Candida. From that day
forward, we rarely ever even to this very day, we just seem
to
not have that problem any longer. Problem solved. But
we hear horror stories all the time from other breeders
about their battles with yeast, and yes, almost 100% of the
time, they are using Nolvasan or a form of that. But yeast
is not the only thing its useless for. Nolvasan is not
effective against many of the avian viruses such as
pachecos.
Many viruses that one sees in around the
aviary and or nursery needs something else entirely, these
killer viruses need a type of compound that oxidizes, as
these viruses are encapsulated and pure alcohol has no
effect. Chlorine bleach is the most effective against every
type bacteria, fungi, virus that one may encounter around
their birds.
This common, household product has done
more to save millions of human lives than any other product
today. It’s highly effective against most of the earths
pathogens that cause illness and harm to most animals,
humans and or birds. Just a little common sense while using
this product and it can be a total disinfectant that kills,
oxidizes and deactivates almost all known pathogens; even
Ebola is deactivated by a little Clorox. If you had been
using a simple Clorox water mixture I would think that the
Pacheco’s would have been better controlled along with some
strict protocols your outcome would have been better, but
instead you spread the killer virus. Due to the disinfectant
used was Nolvasan, this was useless against Pacheco’s and by
using this product you spread the virus via hands, clothes,
etc.
Always remember that cleaning and disinfecting
are not the same, and using Clorox or any type disinfectant,
remember the surfaces must be cleaned before hand, meaning
this, clean the surface, bowls or cages and then disinfect
with a good product. Without the surface being cleaned first
the disinfectant cannot reach the surface through organic
debris or soiled surfaces. We totally wash and clean all our
bowls daily with a product called OXYFRESH cleansing gele.
This great product was made known to us by the famous
researcher, Dr Branson Ritchie Dvm; this guy has done more
research on the avian viruses than anyone else.
The
Cleaning gele is a for human use cleaner and chlorine
dioxide solution, Chlorine dioxide is a stabilized form of
chlorine and is said to be much safer to use around birds,
It has no smells and does not activate into a gas therefore
safe for use in and around avian species. Many city
municipal water treatment plants now use the stabilized
chlorine dioxide due to its safety and effectiveness. We
love it and use it daily, when doing a massive cleaning we
use it in our high pressure machines when cleaning cages, we
soap and clean and pressure wash and then we do not really
try to totally rinse off, we allow a small amount to remain
and dry to give us a residual disinfectant action. Totally
harmless to the birds in the cages. When we are hand feeding
and working around the babies in the nursery we wash all
syringes and pipettes in the gele. We no longer have the
so-called normal problems in the nursery as we experienced
many years ago.
Now, you mentioned something about a
baby yellow naped amazon you purchased at a sale in south
Texas, well, all bets that bird as the others was a smuggled
baby from Mexico. You experienced the problems that one
would find in such a bird, Chlamydia also known in parrots
as Psittacosis or parrot fever. And the high numbers
available at that sale, is a red flag.
Ask this question,
Why would any breeder, lets say any quality breeder, ever
sale their high quality baby at an auction sale, think about
that. Would you sell your babies there? And here again, the
sense of knowing what to buy, where to buy and where not to
buy comes into play, You practiced no common sense of any
experienced and knowing breeder or bird keeper.
Buying such birds at such places is just not very
smart and one with the experience you said you have, you
should have known better, but now your bird
and your
family is or was sick. Let us not forget about the birds
that you sold to customers during this ordeal. Are they a
problem waiting to happen or an illness just waiting to
break.
This could have been worse, by keeping the
bird inside the
home away from the other birds you saved
this bird from the Pacheco virus but you in turn caused
another illness in the family. There is not much I can say
here but, the sickness you experienced in your aviary and
home is preventable in so many ways. First try to learn
about hygiene, disinfectants,and put into action several
quarantine protocols, use a good disinfectant such as Clorox
solution, We use around a 1/4 cup or less of Clorox in a
gallon or water for water food dish dips. We use the
cleansing gele by Oxyfresh all the time, everywhere, on
everything; I highly recommend this product for anyone that
does not understand how to use Clorox safely.
Try
not to purchase birds from places that have no control of
the environment. These places such as bird marts and bird or
animal sales allow everyone or anyone come into contact with
the birds and this is very dangerous and is a problem
waiting to happen. It takes many years of research, learning
and evolution of a bird keeper to actually know what they
are doing and in turn this is what makes a responsible
breeder and bird keeper. The responsible breeder in turn is
able to offer to the public high quality babies for sale.
There is more to being an expert than just saying one is an
expert. I do feel for your loss of those birds as some we
would hope could have survived with little protocols in
place for such events. None of us in this industry ever
wants to see that, but if it strikes we must be able to put
into actions that can save lives and prevent others from
illness. I do want to state to all that may be thinking that
birds can carry illnesses and one may be afraid to try to
keep birds, Keep in mind that dogs and cats and most mammals
including humans have and carry much more illnesses. These
events that happened here are not common and most all can be
prevented and at the least controlled to some degree. Just
be cautious where you buy birds. and I wish you luck. Thank
you
We own and operate one of the largest, selective and most successful research breeding farms on the east coast USA. today.
We are professional responsible breeders and we continue to educate people how to properly maintain their birds
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