A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Hobbies, Crafts and Creativity The Bird Lovers Forum Sick birds

Okay, so now I think my "strange" Pine Siskin was a sick Pine Siskin.

I have had multiple dead birds, all of them either Pine Siskins or Goldfinches.

A coworker of mine called me at work last Thursday and told me about a news segment he had seen on one of the local channels. Here's a link to the story and video discussing a salmonella outbreak in birds in three local counties including Floyd county where I live.
http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/...sease_outbreaks_in_goldfinch_bats/30463/

My cat Taboo also got sick and I suspected it was from eating a sick bird.

She didn't eat, except for a few nibbles that I saw, for nearly 5 days. I took her to the vet on Tuesday, and that was where she stayed until Saturday noon. The vet said she had elevated white blood cells, but said they weren't "left shifted" as would be indicated by salmonella. She wanted to see how Taboo would eat at home over the weekend and said I was to get a stool sample and if Taboo wasn't feeling any better we would send it off to test for salmonella. (VERY EXPENSIVE, and they recommend 3 tests!!!!, because sometimes you get false negatives when there are too few salmonella bacteria present.) Thankfully, Taboo is feeling much better now and except for a soft stool and a little mucous, she appears normal. She's snoozing on my lap as I type this.

I did some research and found that when cats eat sick birds and catch salmonella it's called "songbird fever". Apparently salmonella is an interspecies disease. Cats can catch it from birds, humans can catch it from cats, and cats can catch it from humans.

The news story recommended sterlizing bird feeders in a 10% bleach solution, which I am doing as I type, but a website I found also recommended terminating bird feeding for at least a week to disperse the birds. I think the idea is to allow enough time for the infected birds to either die or get well so that you have only healthy birds returning to the feeders when you begin making food available again.

I'm wondering if the salmonella outbreak may have been caused by the salmonella tainted peanut butter that came out of Lynchburg????

So that explains my empty bird feeders in "Today's birds part 3". I haven't put out any fresh seed for several days now and won't until next Tuesday.

Peanut butter seems a likely suspect. I don't eat it much after getting very sick from it many years ago. Salmonella is not the only sort of problem you can get with this food; aflatoxins can also be a problem.

I LIVE on peanuts and peanut butter (Gastric Bypass 4 years ago).

Here's a link to an article from Chattanooga.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/silence/archives/2009/03/salmonella_caus.shtml

There are now 8 states with reported outbreaks in birds. Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Washington state.

They are saying now that it's not the same strain of salmonella as that from the contaminated peanut butter.

There was also an outbreak of salmonella in birds last October in California, but it appears to winding down.

Vancouver, Canada is reporting an outbreak there also.