Basic Quarantine

Jack Prescott
(Internet Published) Apr 2002

For several months pigeon disease epidemics have decimated the British pigeon population. In February, 2002, I was informed that one of our top show pigeon judges had been very seriously subjected to a pigeon disease epidemic which caused the death of almost all of his stock.

A few years ago, another of our top show pigeon judges had an epidemic. As usual, details about these cases are not available. In both cases, I know that both men kept an awful lot of pigeons on what I call the ancient "Deep Litter System" which most likely supported a lot of mice. Now, mice generate and spread Salmonella, which is as deadly as Paramixo Virus Disease. I would be very interested to know precisely how these two outbreaks originated. I suspect that new pigeons, that were not properly quarantined before being housed with existing stock, introduced these diseases.

Such purchases should have been isolated well away from existing stock for about 9 weeks. This gives the new pigeons time to accept the new environment and build up a resistance to the range of local bugs. Long established stock will build up a resistance to local bugs but may very well be carriers of certain diseases, which remain in a dormant state. However, they may not have the resistance to different strains of bugs and viruses that are introduced from elsewhere. Perhaps the hybrid strength of existing bugs and newly introduced bugs is too much for any of the pigeons to cope with. It is possible that established stock, apparently resistant to local bugs, can be infected by alien bugs when taken to a show. It is possible that alien bugs are introduced on the shoes and clothing of visitors or on the shoes and clothing of the owner who has visited another loft or attended a show. There is no doubt that some pigeon diseases are as deadly as the Foot and Mouth Disease which spread like wildfire through Britain and yet who disinfects before and after a visit to a loft or to a show?

With the ancient deep litter system, that would be impossible anyway - especially when two to three hundred pigeons are involved. Who isolates his own pigeons when he gets them back from a show or from a race? Who puts a ban on pigeon movements and visits when he has an outbreak of disease? There is no law about such restrictions and to my certain knowledge some men continued to show or race their pigeons even though they had sickness in their lofts. Is there any wonder that we get these epidemics?

[Internet Published Apr 2002 at http://www.tipplers.com/jack/]