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home Back May 26, 2002, Issue 46 Next |
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 ISSN 1492-8132 Issue Number 46, Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved, no reprints without permission
The Flock Talk Collection Each collection will focus on a theme. Look for ebooks such as Collected Tips 'N Tricks, So, You Want A Parrot, Eh?, Bird FAQs and Fancies and lots more, available soon! Prices will start at only $6.99, and none will ever be more than $9.99. By buying our ebooks, you are helping Robirda to maintain our online presence, giving us the ability to keep helping small pet bird owners who need the availability of reliable information and help in finding answers to their questions. Keep your eyes peeled for these useful accessories to your 'birdie-info' bank, and help yourself and other pet bird owners too!
Using a small tea-cart, you can carry all your supplies from cage to cage, cleaning and refreshing as you go. This way all your chores can be done at once, so you can have more time for playing with your birds, instead of cleaning up after them!
"First of let me tell you how happy I was to find you. I didn't realize so much can be done with canaries! But I am having a difficult time learning to get around. Is there an area where one can ask questions? "At one point I scrolled to 'commonly asked questions' but now I am unable to find it. Maybe I am dense, but more likely it's just that I am new at this. I come to your website every day to see what I can find, but it's hit and miss that I am discovering things." My answer is; "Hello! Just use the navigation bar we've provided in the form of the text links at the top of most web pages on the site (and at the bottom of many pages, too). These will help you to navigate the different areas of Robirda.com "You will find commonly asked questions along with their answers in the 'Frequently Asked Questions' area - called, for short, FAQs (just click the link called 'FAQs' to get there) "There's several general areas. Many people start with the 'Basic' area - the text link called 'Basics' in the navigation bar will take you here, where you will find a list of links to a series of articles basic to keeping birds - click on any of these links to read the article. "'Breed' will take you to breeding facts, pictures, and articles, 'Pics' which take you to pictures of colours and kinds, (and some home-grown pictures too), and 'Tales' will give you links to various true stories. "If you've tried all that and still can't find what you are looking for, there's always the search engine - it's on the home page at www.robirda.com "If you STILL can't find what you want - do feel free to send an email here, to Robirda.
Coccidiosis is a disease of the intestines of birds. Affected birds suffer severe intestinal upsets that may include diarrhea, blood in the droppings or sudden death. Warm wet conditions allow the organism to survive in the aviary and multiply. Coccivet is an effective treatment and preventative in an efficient water soluble formula that is added to the drinking water for 5 - 7 days depending on the severity of the disease. For more info visit www.birds2grow.com - Products - Flock Talk - Birds Board - Articles - Canary Cam - Canary FAQs - Search - Questions - Ask Robirda - Bird Links - Privacy Policy - Sponsorships - Site Map
Your Birds, With Love
Our next issue is due out May 26th - until then, may
you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!
Robirda
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 For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
Hello! Welcome to the 46th issue of Flock Talk! New to this issue is our Product Review section, just after the feature article. And don't miss entering our new contest! Share your thoughts, ideas, tips or stories by sending an email here, to Robirda.
Cam baby Number One seems to spend much of his time trying to shove his mother off the nest. His sibling is shy and retiring by comparison, although she seems bright, and is very observant. (They will be in the Cam Archives soon.) In honour of the occasion, we are asking your help in naming them. Our Name The Canary Cam Babies Contest starts today and will run until June 23, 2002. Submitted names will be screened by a panel of 6 judges. The two first prize winners will be awarded a complete set of Robirda's Bird eBooks. (for the full list see robirda.com/books.html) In order to help everybody else with their baby-naming problems, the top 20 runner-up names will be published in Flock Talk 49. The readers who submitted the top 10 runners-up will each be awarded a free copy of one of Robirda's ebooks (their choice). You can enter as many names as you wish - just remember to get them in by the deadline of June 15th, and to let us know which baby each name is meant for.
We are looking forward to receiving some great names!
Canary Island http://members.shaw.ca/canaryisland/ I can't remember the last time I enjoyed exploring a website more - this is a wonderful site, full of good information and excellent photos (and even short movies!). The author and her canaries share a warm and caring relationship, and it shows. I find it refreshing to see an approach to these birds that so clearly acknowledges their individuality and capacity for expressiveness.
Do yourself a favour and spend a little time here even if you don't keep canaries - I have no doubt you will enjoy yourself immensely!
 This issue we are proud to share one reader's experience with the mysterious and crippling ailment most commonly known as...
by Sharon Moore A few years ago, I purchased a Lady Gouldian Finch who developed the 'stargazing' syndrome. I felt simply awful for this bird. It did manage to eat in the abnormal posture forced on it by this crippling syndrome, but I have absolutely no idea how. I would put an additional dish of food in for him, once the rest of the flock had gathered around the community dish. He quickly became one of my favorites despite his condition. I became interested in this crippling disease, and decided to search out any information I could find regarding its nature and cause, which I found was classified as a bacterial disease. I'm not sure how many of you know what I mean by 'star-gazing', so I'll begin with that. 'Star-gazing' refers to any neurologic disorder that is characterized by mental dullness, abnormal posture, and an inability to move forward in a normal fashion. It is most commonly seen in snakes. In birds it is characterized by a severely twisted cervical/ neck position, creating a "starward gaze." It is quite easy to see how the name originated! It has also been called the 'wryneck' and 'twirling' disease.
Possible causes include: Infections by bacteria appear to be the most common. This bacterial meningitis or encephalitis usually results from blood infection or bacterial emboli from an abscess elsewhere in the body. The prognosis varies with the specific cause, but it is generally not good. Systemic antibiotics that can cross the blood-brain barrier (e.g. ceftazidime, metronidazole, penicillin's, etc) are usually used in cases of bacterial infection. Because lesions may resolve slowly, an early response to therapy is rarely seen, and good supportive care (e.g., fluids and nutrient supplementation) is essential. Being someone who has always been interested in the medical field, I decided to experiment with the use of the B-Complex vitamins with my sick bird. To my surprise, I observed that he began to improve! Sadly, he never recovered enough to become what you could call a 'normal' bird. This little guy lived for 7 more years in a fairly stable condition after his improvement. Just recently he went into a slow decline, until he'd regressed back into his 'star-gazing' mode. Towards the end he went downhill quite rapidly. There's lots I don't know about medicine, but I do have a desire to learn, so I chose to research Vitamin B deficiencies; I had read that a lack of Vitamin B can cause epilepsy, vertigo, fits, giddiness, and mental symptoms. This is what I found out: The vitamins of the B complex are a range of different organic compounds which vary considerably from each other in their composition; the only common factor being that they were all originally isolated from yeast or liver. Vitamins of the B group include aneurin, thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, nicotinamide, biotin, pyridoxine, folic acid, and cobalamin. The functions of most B vitamins are well known: they are important constituents of enzyme systems in the body which control all the chemical changes of the metabolism. Symptoms: I found that vitamin B deficiency is one of the most common causes of deficiency diseases in cage birds, as is also Vitamin A, D-3, and E. Vitamin B deficiency is the most striking. Early signs of this disease are easily overlooked or misinterpreted, since fanciers don't know a lot about the origin of fits and seizures. Initially the bird is lethargic and suffers from weakness of the legs. You may see it resting on the perch, or the bottom of the cage, taking the weight off its legs. Jumps from perch to perch are undertaken reluctantly and clumsily. When sitting, the bird tends to fall over, either backward or head first, and struggles to maintain balance by flapping its wings. Take-off is reasonably successful, but when the bird has landed, it staggers to the seed and water cups as though drunk. The disturbances of balance grows progressively worse, the head is rotated, and one day the first 'fit' occurs. The bird tries to hold on to the perch with its claws while hanging head downward and beating with the wings. Eventually it crash-lands on the bottom of the cage, where it somersaults a few times and at last - keeping its balance by holding the wings spread out and resting them on the cage bottom - sits still, exhausted. After a rest the bird may be able to hop back onto the perch as though perfectly healthy. These attacks repeat themselves at diminishing intervals and may continue over a period of many months until death occurs. Any excitement can easily trigger an attack, even simply feeding the bird or cleaning its cage. This is how my Gouldian Finch suffered his first attack; I believe the last fatal attack was caused when the lights went off before he had found his perch. He always took the lowest perch, but in a panic, he knocked himself out looking for it. Paralysis of the legs is not uncommon in birds between seven and nine weeks of age. This, with spasms of the toes in the absence of a deformity, is caused by vitamin B1 (riboflavin) deficiency. Intestinal inflammation can also be connected with vitamin B deficiency. Years ago, Goulds that were imported from Japan, were suffering from enteritis but were actually cured by the administration of vitamin B12 (cobalamin). The fits and seizures caused by a deficiency of vitamins of the B group can affect all groups of birds. The high incidence of this deficiency disease in caged birds is largely due to the fact that these vitamins are readily destroyed in the food. Treatment should start as early as possible and will then, as a rule, be successful. Disturbances of the equilibrium and early fits quickly clear up when high doses of vitamins of the B complex are given. If your bird has been suffering for months, it could well be too late for a complete cure, as was the case for my bird, although an improvement may still be achieved. Unfortunately, at such a late stage the extremely sensitive nervous tissue can no longer regenerate itself sufficiently to heal completely. But even then, a marked improvement was seen in my bird, and a relatively normal life lived for some years. To me, this serves to point out the importance of good preventative health care - it can save any amount of worry, trouble, and expense, in the long term! You may never know the trouble good care saved you - and you will be much happier for it, too. I hope some of this was of interest to you, and I hope that if any of you see any of these symptoms in your birds, perhaps you won't run for the antibiotics quite so quickly, but instead will take the time to check on the amount and quality of vitamins in your bird's diet. Dietary requirements vary throughout the year for our little feathered gems, and we can unintentionally fail them. It is so easy to slip into feeding close to the same diet all the year round, and forget that by doing so, we can produce vitamin deficiencies in our birds. We must learn to train ourselves to give them what they need when they need it, and to learn how to recognize when they need that extra 'boost' of certain vitamins. I truly think that the addition of this one small step to common cagebird care would eliminate the need for so much overuse of antibiotics and other drugs and medications. Now you have the same facts I do - I can only hope you make the same choice.
by Sharon Moore
These vitamins assist the activity of important enzymes such as those involved in the production of energy from carbohydrates and fats. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored to a great extent in the body so frequent consumption is needed. When present in excess of the body's needs, they are excreted in the urine. Because they are readily excreted, they are generally non-toxic, although symptoms have been reported in individuals being given megadoses of niacin or pyridoxine. The lack of water soluble vitamins most greatly affects tissues that are growing or metabolizing rapidly such as skin, blood, growing feathers, the digestive tract and the nervous system. These molecules are present in fruit, vegetables and grains, and are unstable in the presence of heat, so that processing and cooking methods can greatly affect the vitamin content actually available in food. The vitamin B complex is traditionally made up of 10 components that differ somewhat their biological actions, although most participate in energy production from carbohydrates and fats. They were initially isolated from the same sources, liver and yeast, which led to their being grouped as a single class. For more details on the Vitamin B complex, see the listings at http://www.natmedpro.com/nmp/Vitbcomp.htm Click on each component to learn more, and to find lists of the foods highest in that particular component.
The Abba Green lent the mix a lovely warm toasty smell, and from the way the birds reacted, tasted just as good. Parent birds fed it very well, and quickly asked for more. I recommend this combination of products highly, whether you are a pet owner, or a breeder. If you want good quality bird food, this is one 'team' to have on your side! * * * Do you have or sell a great bird product? Send us a sample, and have it reviewed for Flock Talk readers! We will be reviewing foods, cages and cage accessories, toys, and other bird items we have direct experience with in upcoming issues. To arrange for a review, send your inquiry and a brief description of your product(s) here, to Robirda |
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