Help me, unidentified disease on finches

[duchatinh]

My finches have been suffering the disease for almost a year. Some of my gouldians and society finches had been really good in that day, but appeared to be in disease the day after !! Some of them had wet , liquid and mucous drops, wet ass, one or both of their legs were seemed to be paintful , they coudn't stand and fly, just lied on the cage floor. They could still eat, but they'were losing their weight really fast. Their face still looks normal, they didn't hide their head under their wings. Everything was seemed normal, except for their legs and drops. After 7-10 days, many of them were healed themselves. The dominant of them were alive after suffering the disease. However, the disease soonly came back after a several of months. I have been trying alot of drugs such as typhoid, dysentery and coccidiosis , but those still did not work. The disease did not cause death in adult birds, however, killed the babies really fast. All of the clutches were normal ultil after 7-10 days old, the babies had wet drops, wet ass, their healths were going bad, they were getting weeker and thinner, drier and dead. There were a several periods that i experience 9 out of ten clutchs were dead with the same symptoms. Has anyone here ever suffered the same things? This is night time, so i will post some pictures tomorrow. Thanks !

[cindy]

It my be very stubborn case of coccidia that need a more specific drug to fix the issue. It appears to be running in cycles through your flock. First we need your location so we can better assist you.

Couple of questions:

When you treat do you treat the entire flock or just sick birds?

Do you scrub and bleach cages and cage cups, nests and perches down during treatment.

Are your birds outside or in?

Type of flooring matter.

Well water, tap water or filtered water?

What specific medications (names/type) are you using?

[Sally]

If you have had this problem for a year, with lots of deaths during that time, I would say you need some professional help. Where are you located? This would be one of the few times I would consult an avian vet. You say you have treated with various medications for various diseases without result, which is the problem when you are treating without knowing what is going on. A vet could do a necropsy on the next one that dies, or you could take fresh fecal samples for testing, or you could take a live bird but one with obvious illness to the vet for some tests. All of these things can be costly, but you are facing what appears to be a serious health problem in your whole flock.

What are the conditions in which the birds live--aviary, flights, cages? What are they eating? Outdoors or inside? Temperature? Humid climate? Breeding birds only? I would also stop all breeding until you can get this problem identified and cleared up.

[cindy]

I agree with Sally...time to consult a vet. By putting in your location we can point you in the direction of one or a good vet teaching hospital that may be able to help.

[Sally]

Since this person posted this morning, and said it was night where he/she is, I would assume they are on the other side of the world from the U.S., possibly Southeast Asia. I have no idea what the avian vet situation is there, but I would guess that this problem is beyond the ability of anyone to diagnose over the web.

Duchatinh, if there is not an avian vet you can consult, then your next option would be to try to find someone with a lot of experience in your area that might be able to advise you. In the meantime, you should maintain a closed aviary, which means no birds out, no birds in.

[cindy]

Sally...I just reread and caught that....thank you!

[duchatinh]

Thanks to both of you,
I'm in Vietnam, which is in Southeast Asia as you guessed
The vet clinic for pet birds in my country is not good, so that why i am asking for friends around the world ^^
Before, drugs and supportive vestments for finches such as iodine and S76, Scatt, i had to accquire on US website.
My birds are on separate outdoor cages , with tap water supplied ( quite good quality water with TDS = 24-30 ). Each time i apply treatment on my birds, i always clean everything by spraying special liquid for cleaning. I treated all of my birds to make sure there will be no transmittion after. I will have some pictures tmr to illustrate my keeping conditions
For coccidiosis i used Esb3 30% produced by NOVARTIS from Switzerland ( 100g Esb3 contains 30g Sulfaclozine Sodium Monohydrate ) . For diarrhea and typhoid i just used local products. Those works well for many digestive diseases, but not THE DISEASE

[cindy]

Sounds like you are taking the best possible care of them. Is there any type of teaching college over there that can test stool samples possibly look at some of the birds that passed away?

We have a few member on the forum that may be able to help you find someone in your area to assit you.

I can pm them and see if they can help you.

[dan78]

Hi duchatinh sounds like you have a real problem. Being from a tropical environment is the aviery/cage bottom wet/damp alot of the times? As for finches that are sick I would personally give them distilled water or boiled to get rid of any nasties. As for medications have you ever given them two or more at the same time as this can counter the affects of them. Sounds to me it may be a virus of some sort which is why it maybe coming and going. Best advice is like others take a dead or sick bird to a vet or at least a stool sample to get an analysis they then can at least determine what the cause maybe and in the long run will definitely cost less, paying for meds that won't work replacing stock all costly in the end. I understand that vets maybe nit the best or to far as my closest avian vet is an hour drive away but some vets will send samples off to labs which are unobtainable to regular people so there some chance that a local vet maybe able to help. I would definitely stop all breeding.as there is a unknown sickness which in the end may pass to a young making it a carrier of the disease and not being affected by it.

[duchatinh]

Here are some photos
1. As you can see, the finch's spirit is normal, he just can not fly and jump, with wet ass...





2. I keep exchanging the water every 3 days



3. I keep them separately, where sunshines can directly reach to

In my location, there is only 2 seasons, dry season and wet season. The disease happens randomly, no matter whether it is dry or wet season. Again, i want to stress that the disease rarely cause death among adult birds. The birds often heal themselves after 7-10 days. The disease causes deaths on baby birds with the same symptoms

[monotwine]

HI there,

You have a nice neat setup. As others have said its very difficult to diagnose over the net, but considering your restrictions to professional help, we will try help as we can.

First off, you should try get a microscope. Nothing less than x20. Up to x200 is great. This will help very much for future diagnoses.

The wet vents can be alot of things. What you describe can be a whole lot of different problems.

You say you use ESB3 how often and for how long? I use it too and have no problems with Cocci.
For the other treatments you gave your birds (you mentioned local ones) what was the active ingredient in the treatments (this will help us see what you have tried treating for)? Again how long did you administer them for? (sometimes if we don't give medication for long enough we encourage a stronger strain of disease)

It sounds like either the adult birds are strong enough to fight off this disease which proliferates and builds up over time. The young would be very susceptable to a disease and weakness and death would be more understandable at their young/weaker age. Whatever your disease is it seems to be passed on to the young via the parents feeding. I would guess it to be a bacterial /protozoal disease based on what you have said, but that is quite a guess on very little information.
Have you ever treated your Bengalese for Campylobacter/Cochlosoma/Giardia?

[duchatinh]

Thanks,
I have no idea on Campylobacter/Cochlosoma/Giardia. Actually i'm so strange to the diseases that you mentioned. For Esb3 treatment, i add it into water for 5 continuous days. During treatment, i clean everything daily by spraying disinfectants . What i'm so confused now is that : Is there any known disease which affects the bird legs like that ? As long as i figure out what is the disease, acquiring medications is such an easy thing.
The local product that I use: ( specifically, it is for chickens, not for small birds )
Net: 50g
Ampicillin trihydrat
Colistin sulphat
Neosyl-TS

In my country, it is so difficult to find a product specifically for birds at a local store. Also the knowledge on bird's health is limited. Suggest me if you guys is thinking of any possible treatment, i'll try my best to approach those, especially if the meds is available in the US, since it could be bought on Ebay

[Ursula]

I'm not an expert in diseases, but for starters I'd use only bottled water or at least boiled, and change it daily instead of every 3 days... Do you give them greens or veggies? Maybe there are some that they can't digest or there's something on it. (I give my birds greens daily but only organic!)

[kenny66]

3 diseases come to mind- If my aviaries were diagnosed with these by a vet then I would treat accordingly.
1. stubborn coccidiosis resistant to sulpher drugs and should be treated with baycox/3ml per ltr water for 3 days-eliminate the disease first (due to shedding) then undertake the cleaning as suggested
2. Trichomoniasis which is a protozoan infection treated by Ronidizole 3grms per ltr water for 5 days
3. Thrush/chlamydia treated by Nilstatin or Nilstat/ half tablet per iltr water/1 day or 2 drops in oral form.
However I would definitely consult a vet if possible to obtain a proper diagnosis. If you cant then all of the above are safe to use at the suggested strengths.The chick deaths and long term survival of the adults seem to point to 1 or 3 being the culprits. I believe you can obtain these products off the internet. I am very reluctant to suggest any treatment without proper vet advice but the above is what I would personally try if it was absolutely necessary under urgent circumstances. None of these treatments are to run concurrently.

[kenny66]

By the way, you have a very nice set up