Newsletters 2016

The Bully (I)

In my newsletters I have often said, that pigeons can carry a lot of potentially pathogenic bacteria in them, which fortunately does not always equal need to give rise to symptoms. Whether and to what extent these pathogens will cause problems depends on several factors. We read in the newspapers or see on the news quite often reports of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera in areas where a natural disaster has occurred. These infections are usually just as dormant as infections in pigeons. Only when the conditions are ok, then they can display their harmful effect favorable.

Type Bully

Infections that may be present in pigeons without being equal to disease do not have to give any symptoms, for example, Coccidiosis, Trichomoniasis, Hexamitiasis, streptococci, staphylococci, E. Coli and Salmonella even. But certainly the Bully. The bully's name is officially Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Probably concerns the pigeons when only one of the approximately 200 different strains which consist of this bacterium. We have found in fact carried out DNA typing of Pseudomonas strain. It was so far every time only a particular variant came forward, namely the type of ATCC 10145. Repetition of this study should help determine definitively whether it is indeed still in pigeons to act the same strain.