Expert: Roger Lederer - 3/2/2010

Question
Hello, how are you going? :-) Every day for the past few years, a froup of wild pigeons come to our backyard every morning and they stay all day, and we feed them birdseed, or spaghetti or bread or porridge (we change it daily so they don't get bored) and give them water and then leave fly off at night when it starts to get dark, and they come back again the next day. 8 weeks ago one beautiful white pigeon who I loved too much got sick and he had diarehha stuck to his bum so I called an avain vet who does house calls and the vet said the he had a bacterila infection and he gave him an injection and anibitics but they didn't work and now he is gone. Then last week another beautiful brown bird had the same sympotms so I gave him the same antibitotics that I had left, but he died yesterday :-( Why do wild birds get bacterial infections and what do you think I can do to make sure that none of the other birds in the group get it? Why didn't the tablets work do you think? I was so upset with those tablets for not working that I threw the rest of them in the bin today. Why do wild birds have to get infections? Thanks heaps for your time, I do appreciate it a lot

Answer
Pigeons, like other birds that flock, tend to pass diseases around the members of the flock - like humans do in classrooms, airplanes, etc. I don't know the source of the bacteria or what kind of bacteria it is, so I can't tell you where it came from. The source of the bacteria could be in your backyard and by feeding a bunch of pigeons, it could be spreading. I don't know, put it's possible.
Why do wild  birds get infections?  All wild birds and other animals get bacterial infections, just like we do. They get sick and sometimes die, just like we do. Why didn't the tablets work? Just like humans, some birds are stronger than others or the infection might have gone too far. As I said, animals that hang around in groups spread diseases faster than those that don't.