Natural Immunity

[Zipman]

Natural Immunity vs Medications what are your ideas?

[teg33]

Um, well, I suppose I'm more with medication, because the birds we get aren't completely 'ready' for natural immunity because of the way some are bred. Good question though!

[Myzomela]

Wow, what a question! Have you got an hour or two??

In summary, I believe that both are important.

We strive to maximise natural immunity by breeding good quality, unrelated birds; feeding them well and housing them appropriately which minimises their stress and stops excessive exposure to pathogens. Good hygiene practices especially with food preparation are important.

However, because we keep birds in a confined space we increase their exposure to pathogens. In these situations we have come to rely on certain medications such as dewormers and anti-coccidial drugs, for example, because simply put they are the most effective at eliminating these parasites. However, the degree of reliance on these medications has a lot to do with quarantine protocols, aviary design, and management practices as well as the innate immunity of the birds in question.

[maz]

Natural immunity would be a goal, but you would have to be prepared for loses to reach it, in other words the only way your going to pick the birds with natural immunity would be to let those without die off and stop all medication....it's a question that comes up often in rat breeding, One way to handle it is only breed from those animals that have never needed medicating, these should be those birds with the highest natural immunity....but seeing most people medicate their whole avairy when something is noticed it's going to b a hard thing to acheive, one option would be to remove any birds that need medicating fromt he avairy and medicate only these birds then have a strict no medicated bird is ever allowed to breed policy.

[jusdeb]

Oh to be in a perfect world where all breeders took the same care as me ....then Id prefer natural .

[Tintola]

Wow, what a question! Have you got an hour or two??

My thoughts exactly! I was waiting for someone to answer this topic before I put my two bits in.

Although there is a place for preventive and curative medication in modern day aviculture, I stand by the old adage of "If it ain't broke then don't fix it" I know that I will get a barrage of disagreements on this issue with "What about when"... and "If I hadn't" and "You should know better" but over the years I have come to the realization that evolution has given all organisms the perfect immune system suitable for the natural environment from which it came. For example, birds from my local climate ( humid, warm and lots of rain) seem to to have a natural immunity to diseases that thrive in that environment, whereas desert birds (particularly Spinifex pigeons, Californian Quail and other ground dwellers are very prone to soil born parasites and diseases when kept out of the conditions in which they evolved, and therefore must be kept in a bone dry aviary and treated a couple of times a year. Strictly arboreal species (Fruit Pigeons, Honeyeaters etc) that never eat from the ground would rarely, if ever come in contact with these problems.

The other old wives tale " Children who play in the gutter and eat dirt, never get sick" also makes sense to me. All organisms, ourselves included, are hosts to numerous parasites and other freeloaders living on and within us. A certain amount of these are stimulating to the immune system and actually make us healthier. It is only when things get out of balance with inappropriate diet, overcrowding, (leading to stress) or unhygienic conditions that disease takes over.

Most of my twenty aviaries I don't clean, they are regularly mulched with leaf litter and are open to the rain. A large population of compost worms do the work of cleaning up the waste when I turn the litter over. They also serve as a constant supply of live food for the curlews, pittas, thrushes and kingfishers. I am sometimes amused by people who fly into panic when a typhoid Mary sparrow or feral pigeon lands on the aviary specifically to infect their birds with one of the biblical plagues. If the birds are healthy, stress free and well fed their immune systems will cope. The bottom line is to know your birds and their behaviour and at the first sign of illness isolate them and treat them before it becomes contagious. By the way, I rarely have any disease problems.

OK Bring it on.

[jusdeb]

Yep good food , good environment , stress free = healthy birds .

[vettepilot_6]

Well I would tend to agree with you Tintola....only adding that to acheive that before adding any new birds Quarantine first....I am old school bred finches in large aviaries by the bucket load...compost heaps,vinegar fly drums....old way suppling maggots (rotten meat) maggots dropping of through bran before falling into avairy....large fishpond with fish and plants (as natural as possible) and rarely lost any birds....I think overbreeding of poorer quality birds has increased disease now...

[GregH]

Breeding from birds that have never had had disease to increase innate immunity? A very Darwinian solution however apparent absence of disease might arise be attributed to: 1, expression is sub-clinical; 2, the birds do have the strongest immune systems; or 3, the birds were never exposed! Once a pathogen is in the confined space of an aviary amplification of the contagion and transmission levels is enviable but for the most part aviaries are not only good at keeping birds in but keeping other birds out. The majority of wild birds are quite free of parasites and pathogens so becoming apoplectic every time a sparrow lands on the aviary isn’t necessary however it is like playing Russian roulette which is why people put roofs on aviaries or have birds-rooms. The gene pools of many foreign finches are so small that risking them in order to attain natural immunity would be imprudent. Aviaries aren’t sterile either so it’s likely that older birds aren’t as soft as bird-room raised stock. The immune system isn’t totally under genetic control and can be “trained” for appropriate responses but rather than systematically and regularly exposing birds to influenza, worms, coccidian, west-Nile virus, malaria, Newcastles disease or whatever, I’d rather quarantine them and treat them if disease arises and for diseases that are inevitable (like coccidia in the Philippines) then regular prophylaxis is acceptable.

[natamambo]

Tint, your arguments are sound until reality of past experience sets in. Bubonic plague is a good example of something introduced that people in their "normal" habitat succumbed to very quickly. Dirty street dwellers were more likely to catch it because they were the ones closest to the rats (furry, not human ) who were the carriers (until it was spread by inter-human contact of course).

Just goes to show, evolution ain't always the answer .