I found an egg shell rolling around on the sidewalk by the beach.
It wasn't a chicken egg shell nor a robin's eggshell.
It was a pigeon's eggshell.
Baby pigeons (squabs or squeakers) are hatching early this year.
Last night I was awakened by the sound of a "scratching" noise followed by a bang. I thought for sure some @$$hole was trying to break in. I reached for the phone ready to dial 911 carefully waiting and listening for any other noise or voices before I dialed. I leaped out of bed peering out of the window trying to see if I could see any activity. All that I saw was that the bird feeders were torn off the back deck.
A very large raccoon was clawing his way on the back deck.
It is a miracle that my birds didn't go crazy with "night frights" from the noise.
Craow Dum, the pigeon, was "bustin'-a-move' calling. He, however, was clearly upset.
This afternoon, the vet called with the results from his cytology report.
Despite the massive barrage of a month long regiment of antibiotic treatment the report showed he has a serious bacterial infection (!)
Baytril is a broad spectrum antibiotic along with clindamycin which is used to treat bone infections had no effect.
Needless to say I was bit upset.
What ever bacteria this bird has is not affected by these meds. Therefore, the bacteria has to be isolated and clearly identified in order to find the correct antibiotic. From what I remember from dental school in pharmacology class is that different antibiotics are effective specific in treating anaerobic, aerobic, gram negative, gram positive with different modes of attack such as breaking down a cell wall or attacking the mitochondria in the offending bacterial cell, whatever.
sigh....
He has a visit next week for a culture in order to isolate the bacteria.
I hope we find out what it is and can successfully eradicate it. Maybe this is the reason he always has a runny boogery nose.
In the meantime, I am keeping him clean and well fed. He doesn't seem to mind me cleaning his snotty little nose. He probably can sense that he can breathe better without all that nasty debris stuck to his face and mouth.
I hope and pray we can find out and cure this chronic problem.
Your vet will be able to submit an article to a veterinary journal about the twists and turns of the medication regimen for your "Black Beard." He's lucky to have you guys to care for him, the vet included.
ReplyDeleteI suspect, in my opinion, he has mycoplasmosis. It is a 'primary erosive disease". In other words, this doesn't usually kill them but it sets up a situation for nastier bugs to move in. He is a constant booger machine and it is fairly common in pigeons which is why I suspect this is it. If it is the problem, at least we can deal with it with doxycycline which is injectable.
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