FINCHforum

Occasionally we'll feel the need to just treat one bird and we have found the easiest way to do that is with amoxicillin. We keep Fishmox capsules on hand and simply open a capsule and litely sprinkle about a third of it into the waterer which is a 3-4 oz. container. Fishmox can be found at your local pet shop and since it is amoxicillin it will treat both gram negative and gram positive bacteria. I generally treat for about 5 days when I feel its needed then follow thru with Probios for the same amount of days. Paul

You should note there are 500mg and 250mg capsules. Would the dosage be the same?

The capsules I purchase are 250 mg. Please keep in mind that our area does not have a good avian vet so we are pretty much left to our own defenses when it comes to our birds and their illnesses and how to treat them. Paul

In this area of Florida we have several avian vets available, we have used them for issues pertaining to gram positives and gram negatives in a Grey we bought that was being handfed by the breeder. The baby was sick within days of when we brought him home, he was apparently ill but hiding it at the time we chose him, he was seen by our vet as soon as the symtoms we apparent and he vomited food. When tested the birds immune system had been compromised by PBFD, most likely passed by the parent birds that shed it. The vet prescribed Baytril for an extended period of time until the weekly counts in the gram studies corrected itself and we could stablized the bird.

It is recommended that cultures be done (especially on larger birds) to be certain the bacteria is treated with the right course of anitbiotic that will be effective on that certain bacteria.

I realize in certain areas most don't have avian vets available. Paul have you ever used Baytril, is it readily available to you?

I actually (at one time), had a pretty "scientific" calculation for administering the proper dosage of fish mox to my birds. This was based on the weight of the average canary. A very knowledgeable lady friend and her avian vet figured it out. I'll see if I can dig it up as I haven't needed it in several years. I would also add honey to the mixture to make it more palatable to the birds. Fish mox tastes terrible. Ever try it? Bob

Bob, we used unsweeten cranberry juice added to the baytril, that worked well.