Harvey's Story - Victim of PBFD

Harvey's Story - Victim Of PBFD

I spent a great deal of time investigating breeders with various DNA testing labs in the UK and finally located a breeder who was recommended by other parrot keepers and who I was told was "clean" from PBFD as this breeder regularly tests all of the livestock.

The reason for all of this is that we (myself and my fiancé) wanted to buy an African grey parrot. We travelled North for 3.5 hrs to get to this breeder. We saw a selection of baby greys but there was one that we bonded with instantly.

We left the breeders place and travelled home as the baby was waiting to be weaned onto the diet that we wanted (seed or Harrison's). We waited 3 weeks before we travelled back up north to collect the bird. He was so sweet. We got him home and selected a couple of names, wrote them down on several pieces of paper and let him choose. He selected one piece. He was now called "Harvey".

After letting him settle in for about 10 days I took him to an avian vet for a general health check. I was so alarmed a couple of days later when I received a phone call to say that his white blood cell count is very low (0.4) where it should be in the range of 2-12.5. We then isolated Harvey from all of our other live stock (we live in a small house so quarantine is not possible). The following day I had to take blood samples and feather samples and sent them to avian biotech.

We were on a waiting game!!!!

Unfortunately Harvey (our African grey) is not our only bird, we also own 2 x dusky headed conures, 1 x painted conure, 1 x Hahn's Macaw and 4 x cockatiels. I am now dreading their health, but PBFD has a minimum incubation period of about 3-4weeks so the wait was so hard.

After I received the phone call from the Avian Vet my world started to fall apart, I didn't sleep at all and cried for most of the night.

I went to see our Avian Vet on the 4th September as Harvey took a turn for the worst on the evening of the 3rd. The vet, on examining him decided to give him some medication. This included Baytril, Maxolon, Synulox, Nystatin and Hartman's.

Following this treatment I had to administer him the same again (via Crop Tube) twice a day. One hour following the drugs, he has to be given (again by crop tube) some hand rearing formula. This was administered until 8th Sept. He started to make a very good improvement and was trying to break out of the incubator that we were keeping him in. He started to eat on his own (only a little), but he was eating. We went back to see the vet and Harvey was looking good!!!!

Then out of the blue on the 11th Sept my phone rang, it was the vet. He had just has the results of the Tests that he had performed. It turns out that he had e-coli. The vet explained that with the medication that he had been on that the e-coli would have been eliminated. We just had to wait for the results to come back from Avian biotec.

At this point I had convinced myself that Harvey only had e-coli. This was a bad mistake on my behalf. Because 1hr after I received the call from the vet, I received a phone call from Avian Biotec.

Harvey, who was a boy!!!! Had tested POSITIVE for PBFD.

My world had just started to crumble.

I contacted the vet, who said that he would arrange to meet me the following morning. We met up to discuss all of the possibilities. During the conversation the vet arranged with me to do a house call that evening, so that we can test all of the other birds.

He came to the house at 6pm with all of his equipment. He was there for three and a half hours. He took blood from all of the birds, along with a couple of blood feathers.

He asked both my fiancé and myself if we wanted to re-test Harvey for anything. After long thought we decided that if he was PBFD positive we know what is wrong with him, so we decided not to test him anymore. While the vet was still with us he discussed the options left for Harvey. We all decided to get him put to sleep on 14th sept.

The vet then left our house with all of the samples ready for analysis.

We both went upstairs to where Harvey was in isolation; I took up some food for him in a syringe as I had noted that he had not eaten anything. I administered the baby food for him and then we all played together for a little while. I did notice that his breathing was very laboured, but didn't think too much of it. I said good night to Harvey and my Fiancé spent 5mins more with him then put him to bed.

On Friday 13th September we both got out of bed, my Fiancé went to open the door of Harvey's room to say good morning. Next minute I heard a scream!!!!!

HARVEY HAD DIED DURING THE NIGHT!!!!!!

There he was lying on the floor of his cage with his wings slightly spread and his eyes open. This sight was one that will stay with me forever.

Neither I nor my fiancé could go into the room and wrap him up. I called on a friend of mine who also owns birds and informed her of what had happened. She came straight over and dealt with him. She put his wings back in place and closed his eyes, she soaked him in water and then wrapped him in newspaper and the put him in some plastic bags. She kindly took him away and put him in her fridge.

I called the vet and informed him of Harvey's death. He asked me if I would bring Harvey to him on 14th Sept for him to perform a post mortem. This we did.

Over the whole weekend we were both so upset. But we had to clean the whole house with F10 disinfectant. All the floors all, the walls everything in the house got disinfected and scrubbed. We finally finished last night at 23.30.

All of the tests were good on all the other birds. All of them had a good white blood cell count. And a few days later we received all of the PBFD tests. All results were NEGATIVE.

We have just had the results back again as we had to re test all of the birds 2 months after the initial test. I also decided to do some room tests as well. All tests came back NEGATIVE. This is such good news at the moment, BUT we are not out of the woods yet. We will be running more tests in 3 months time by which time we hopefully will be clear of PBFD.

Please can you make sure to all of your members that PBFD is terrible problem with no cure. It can be transmitted on your clothes, on your hands, infact anywhere. If any member goes to a pet shop or a breeders house. Change your clothes at the front door and disinfect yourself with F10 disinfectant. This is the only way that you can't pass it on to your own birds.

Harvey showed no physical signs of PBFD. This is common. Only when PBFD is in its advanced stage you MAY see physical signs. One of the first ways of finding out is by taking a blood sample, if the white blood cell count is low the bird has immune suppression, there is a good chance that this could be because of PBFD. It is not a sure fire way, but it can be an indication. The bird does not die because of PBFD, but, as he has no immune system he will contact a secondary infection, which will probably kill him. PBFD is the bird's version of HIV/AIDS.

I would like to thank my avian vet Andreas Brieger MRCVS, E-mail andreas@saeavc.com for his fantastic support. Without his help I don't know what I would have done. If any of your members require an excellent avian vet the contact Andreas it will be worth it.

I hope that my story has helped, even one person. It doesn't matter as long as people are aware of this problem and what it can do to their lives.

Thank you again for your time and keep up the good work

Regards

Chris

Footnote:

While all of this was going on with Harvey, Harry our Hahns macaw was getting jealous of all the attention that we were giving Harvey, he decided to take a syringe (which was clean and contained only water) and fly off with it in his beak. He worked out that as he pushed the plunger on to a surface he got some water, the photo shows this. I hope these can be added to your site for an amusement factor.

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