Diversen

Trichomonas

My pigeons suffered from trichomoniasis in 2006; it was cured with Oropharma; as my feeding knowledge progressed, I did not have this disease anymore on my loft.

In 2007 I started preventive curing with B.S. (Pharma Belgica De Weerdt), once every two months.

Sweating disease (correct english ?)

I got this once during the summer of 2006; all pigeons were cured with antibiotica.

Eggs not hatching

I get this problem mostly with my meredith strain. I suppose that the line suffers from in breeding; that's why a started to cross over one hen with a sheffield cock.

A possible source of dead young in the egg might be a Salmonella infection from the parent to the egg. I don't think this was the case and it was confirmed by the veterinary. The problem arises mostly during the first round, and diminishes as the breeding season goes on.

I could solve many problems in this area by changing the feeding pattern. More protein food as a preparation to the breeding season and more vitamin supplements, which result in better egg quality. After all, the quality of the egg determines the vitality of the young it will produce.

In 2007 the first round was beneath all expectations; probably they did not have enough reserve because I started them training to get them more tam; this resulted in young of poor quality and many died in the egg. Moreover, the young who made it did not fly very well. After switching the food pattern things improved and by the end of the season I had young which flew 14 hours !

In the winter of 2007/2008 I spent more attention to the feeding pattern of the old birds; the results improved and many eggs hatched without problems.

Coccidiosis

Coccidiosis is not really a problem; most of their time they spend in the loft and only the droppers get out. The tipplers fly, and as they land, they should go into the loft; they never sit on the ground where they can get infected by coccidiosis.

Droppers are cured twice a year with bactrim.

Worms

Twice a year all pigeons are cured against worms; this is quite important for their condition as they get infected via wild pigeons.