Aussie Finch Forum

I was recently re-reading my copy of Finch Breeders Handbook (Volume 1) The Australians, which was produced by the Queensland Finch Society in 1987.
It contains a chapter on bird health written by Dr Lucio Filippich, a vet at the University of Queensland.

With respect to quarantine he suggests "using a couple of the aviculturist's own finches to act as guinea pigs, in case the new arrivals are carriers of disease".

I wonder how many members go to these lengths to ensure their new acquisitions are safe before introducing them to their avairies.

Cheers
Brett

Well I do something similar, not quarentint thou. When I was building my cages a few years ago i would put either a pair of zebs or african fires into a cage before i would release Wrens or the more expensive finches , just incase I had small enough holes for them to get out.

My worry would be with the quarentine option, that something may appear after you have released them back into the main cage. As it may take afew weeks to show in your birds...But nothing is ever fool proof ... pete

i put ob waxbills in or ruddies incase i have missed something

Whilst that method would be somewhat useful in parrots it is less useful in finches as most finch diseases are either slow to develop or not contagious in the same way as parrot diseases. For example, a sentinel bird in a 4 week finch quarantine won't tell you if the new birds have worms, coccidia (unless the cage is wet) or air sac mite. It may pick up Megabacteria or yeast but it may equally not be affected. This style of quarantine is better for detection of subclinical Chlamydia in parrots where it will be spread rapidly in quarantine conditions. The other failing is that we are likely to use a zebbie or similar as our sentinel and we all know that they'll be around with the roaches when the big bomb goes off. You would get far more value from faecal screening and routine treatment.

Thanks for the replies.

To be fair to Dr Fillipich, he did recommend feacal screening and routine treatments as well.

Danny, are you suggesting that this is not useful for air sac mite? Is that because it takes more than 40 days for newly infected birds to develop symptoms?

Cheers
Brett

BrettB wrote: Danny, are you suggesting that this is not useful for air sac mite? Is that because it takes more than 40 days for newly infected birds to develop symptoms?

Cheers
Brett

Yes, and some species seem quite resistant to the affects of air sac mite and may not express clinical disease (put a bengalese and a gouldian in a cage and the bengo will not be the one that shows clinical disease first).