HELP - Baby Goulds dying

[Sally]

Oh, thank goodness you are on here, Tiffany! Tiffany is an expert on Gouldians and diseases, she will give you good advice.

[wilkifam]

Abdomens in dead chicks DO look like they are full of air.......

Lori

[wilkifam]

There is also a black spot on the right side of the abdomen of all the chicks who have died.

Is there a treatment for this for the adults so it is not passed to other birds here?

Lori

[L in Ontario]

I'm sorry to read your confirmation of the symptoms Tiffany described. Yet it is good that you now know and Tiffany should be able to direct you further. Best wishes. I will be following this to see what treatment is suggested if any.

[debbie276]

Here's an article on Black spot:
http://www.finchniche.com/features_blackspot.php

[Jasmin]

I'm sorry to hear about all the breeding trouble Lori...hope you find the source.

Just want to say this thread has been very informative - thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience

[wilkifam]

Looked closer at babies who died, although there is food in the crops, they are not full by any means. Looking a pictures of babies with full crops, these don't look full to me. The 5th baby is still alive and raises his head and opens his mouth, how agressivelyl should a chick this age be begging? This is my first experience with baby goulds, so I have nothing to compare it with.

[L in Ontario]

I would sat chicks around 6 days should be rocking their heads back and forth and you should hear it's calls well at this time. Fairly aggressively - yes.

[wilkifam]

Based on that description, I would say this chick is weak then, no noise, lifts it's head and opens mouth but not very agressively.

Lori

[debbie276]

There really isnt much to see in their crops for the first few days.
This is a new born, see how little is in the crop

This is day 6

You don't really even start to hear them beg till day3, just softly, getting louder and louder each day.

[wilkifam]

Thanks for the pics, will look closer at baby when I get home tonight. This is a great group of folks. Thanks for all the help.
Lori

[nixity]

Hi Lori,

If it's Atoxo the outcome is not good.. unfortunately.. from The Merck Veterinary Manual:(Site: http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index ... 200103.htm)

"There is no known effective treatment. Anticoccidial drugs do not affect parasites in the tissues. Use of antimalarial drugs has been suggested. Good management procedures, including prevention of exposure to mites, isolation of age groups, and scrupulous cleanliness (particularly daily cleaning before oocysts sporulate) help control the disease. Disinfectants have little effect on oocysts."

My suggestion if you suspect the Atoxo is retire the pair from breeding and keep them permanently and discreetly separate from your other birds, as this is spread through fecal contact.

[nixity]

If you can afford it - I would recommend sending out samples to Avian BioTech in Florida.
You can request free collection kits online or you can call and they'll send them to you free - you'll want to request CULTURE swabs.
There is a big difference/distinction because if you get the dry swabs the samples will likely just die in transport.

The culture swabs have some sort of auger in the bottom of the swab collector that keeps the organisms alive during the transport.
They supply you with the return packages - I can't remember if you pay for postage, I'm sure you do.

If you call (1-800-514-9672) - ask to speak with Arne (pronounced Arnie.. pretty sure he still works there). He was a tremendous help with me in 2010 when I was dealing with juvenile deaths in my aviary. Unfortunately everything came back inconclusive with me - but I think you might be able to get something if you can get in touch with him and send it out quick.

Because it may NOT be Atoxo, maybe it's Mycoplasma, which you can treat easily. Maybe it's not any of the above but is something entirely different. As stated in the article Debbie posted the manifestation of the Black Spot is not really known, it could be a number of things, and is pretty contested.

The reason I say to call and speak to him is because he might be able to give you a better idea as to how to complete the form for how they should test.
I would suggest you do a full bacterial (both gram negative AND gram positive, I would question about Clostridium and Mycoplasma especially, but generally if you do gram neg and gram pos if they're there, these will show up among potentially other things if it's not that) and fungal culture and perhaps also a PCR test for Protozoans (coccidiosis, cryptosporidium, etc) also ask about Pseudomonas.

[wilkifam]

Tiffany,

Thanks so much for all your help. Will call them. Any idea of cost of the cultures?

Will move birds to separate room tonight.

Fortunately, they are in a separate cage.

Lori

[nixity]

It's $24.50 for the Fungal Culture (covers Aspergillosis and Candida) and I'm pretty sure it was $24.50 for the Bacterial test too but you need to be VERY specific and say you want both a generic analysis gram-negative AND gram-positive, so it might be $24.50 for each?

The Crypto is also it's own test and is $24.50

If you explain your situation sometimes they will be generous and give you a discount or they might be able to offer you some sort of package.

Also, what they did in my case (maybe I'm not allowed to say this? ) is I sent samples from two birds (in my case I was testing two parent birds as well) but they only charged me the single test fee because I guess they were able to plate the samples out on the same medium.
The assumption there I guess being that if one had it, the other probably did too.
So, I still marked my samples as this one coming from this bird, that one coming from that bird, but I wasn't charged separately per bird.

Also - you can send AS MANNNNYYYY samples as you want and they will plate whatever you send. The more you send, the better. What I recommend doing is asking for 12 culture swabs.
This way, you can get 4 samples throughout the day from all three birds (mom, dad, and nestling if still alive). You have to get the samples extremely fresh, so you might need to sit around and wait for them to poop, get a good swab of it, label it, and stick it in the refrigerator.
So what I did was AM, Noon, PM, Evening.
Also, to avoid any potential cross contamination of sampling it requires a lot of annoying paper changes in between.
In other words - in the morning when you get your samples from mom and dad make sure the paper is clean, then clean it right before you get your samples at noon, etc.

For the baby, generally I find most babies like to poop in my hand as soon as I take them out of the nest - this is your best chance at getting a fresh culture swab from the nestling if you can get this. If you can't get it four times a day just get as many as you can.

The more the merrier in this case because in some situations they may shed the organism in one dropping, but not in another.
I realize this is a load of information to take in...
They were REALLY helpful with me over the phone. I probably spent a total of 8 hours talking to Arne trying to isolate what was happening with my juveniles. Never figured it out.. it was only my blues, they all kept dropping dead on me shortly after fledging and all from various lines.

All my other juveniles were fine.
In the end, I boiled it down to the carpet in the basement harboring a bunch of nasties that their immune system simply couldn't handle. I am not one to usually climb over to the side of the fence that says blues are weaker but it seemed really coincidental that every other mutation (normals, yellows, etc) were thriving, including my adults, but the juvenile blues, pastels and silvers were for the most part, dropping like flies.
The few that survived I consider to be "Immune Tank Engines" - they must be extremely strong.. LOL