Rod Simmons
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Two years ago, late in the 2014 race season around the start
of October. I had about 20% of the race team showing signs of Mycoplasma .
They handle great, tossed fine but when put to the acid test of racing would
either be behind the healthy pigeons in the loft or we would lose them.
As certain types of Mycoplasma can’t be detected with a
microscope, I was lucky to be shown how to detect it by visual observation.
It was in this time I visited avian vet Dr Phil Sax from
Burwood, Melbourne. Phil suggested we should take a leaf out the chook industry
and fog the loft.
Now his words of wisdom sat in the back of my memory bank
for the next 6 months until I can across a video of a successful racing pigeon flyer
in Europe who had a state of the art loft. Now like a blow behind the ears Phil’s
advice came to the fore when in the video the flyer had a ducted fogging system
in this entire loft.
So the time had come to start investigating the possible use
of a fogging machine.
First thing was to research what products I could use and
how it may benefit the pigeons. I contacted the manufacture of Virkon-S as I know this product is rated one of the best disinfectant on the market.
There was also underground data out there the product helped
the pigeons total health when absorbed by the bird by breathing it in.
I was by then convinced to go down this path and purchase a
fogger and test it out for the 2016 race season. As it also turned out, the
week of making this decision I happen to be talking on the phone to Dr Colin
Walker, and as we all know Colin as a vet is highly respected around the world.
I told Colin my plan and he did say it wouldn’t work for Cocci. He did mention
if I purchased a fogger I could if I wanted treat the pigeons using the fogger.
I didn’t realise I was going to open Pandora’s box when
looking to purchase a fogging machine, to filter through the maze of products on
the market, from dance floor hot foggers with electric element that heats whatever
you put in to eliminate a fine mist, as well as petrol and butane hot foggers
used for pesticides and herbicides.
Besides the droplet size of many of these not being small
enough, I was concerned by heating the Virkon-S how it could change the chemical
structure of the product and could this affect our pigeons when they absorb it
into their airways.
My direction was then focused to using a cold fogger. I
found one that had a particle size of 10 – 150 microns, 10 being fine enough
for my purpose.
I tested the fogger while racing, using it on the morning of
basketing for a race, then on Sunday after the race pigeons where home and the
pigeons had arrived from road training. Later in the race season I only used it
on the morning of basketing.
I treated the pigeons with antibiotic when the race birds
arrived from a race, this was on Saturday and Sunday. All other race birds
would go treatment free until after they went to a race. This could be up to
four weeks for some pigeons.
I tested a few pigeons mid week by taken a crop flush and
random dropping. This showed Dr Colin Walker to be correct as at times the
pigeons did show some Cocci and wet canker, but at no time did I see any respiratory
issues. I did though find a very small group of pigeon very close to the end of
racing having some signs of Mycoplasma.
So all in all I found the fogger to be beneficial in our overall
loft management while racing. In the off season when our loft has no exposure
to outside lofts, I reframe from using the fogger as well as medicating all
pigeons in the loft.
As a foot note: In the 2016 race season out of 20 races, our
top 3 federation results were Two 1st federations wins, Three 2nd
and Three 3rd fed placing. With the 1st fed wins, both
times we landed 3 pigeons together. We won the Short series aggregate and the
Combine aggregate.
Rod Simmons
Winners1
www.winners1.com.au
 - Copy.JPG)
