Proper Quarantine

[birdvet]

The new bird may have a weaker immune system from the stress of transition and young age. So while it may not harm an older bird being introduced, the younger one may be more affected. You see my concern? I wonder if anyone knows greater details about this.

You're spot on Michael, new birds are stressed about their new environment and have a weaker immune system as a result. Same for young birds, their immune system is weaker anyway and then with added stress of a new environment they are at increased risk. The quarantine period should give time for any underlying diseases to rear their ugly heads due to the stress reducing the birds ability to fight the disease. If you have the facility to slowly introduce new birds to those already in the collection that is great. What we do, once the 30-45 days is up, is leave the newbies in the quarantine cage and then bring some of the collection birds from the intended aviary and put them in an adjacent cage so they can all chat to each other, sneeze on each other etc...I guess they're a bit like sentinal birds. We will monitor for a couple of weeks and if still no sign of disease rearing its head, and if the birds all seem to be getting along then we'll slowly introduce them out in the destination aviary...keepers monitoring them and if need be, intervening if there is any aggression noted. Sometimes, if there are only a small number of birds to be introduced, we'll put them in a separate cage inside the intended aviary so they can chat to the birds already in the aviary.

A pet bird situation makes it a bit easier to introduce everyone, unlike the aviary situation where we may have 20-30 birds in a flock.

But yeah, because we don't know enough about bird bugs, especially viruses, and each species of parrot is different and likely carries unique bugs, its good to be cautious

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Hey birdvet, doing gradual introduction by exposing flock members one at a time makes sense to me, but I'm still struggling with concepts like gradually bringing the cages closer together or limiting the exposure time each day and then separating them again -- those don't seem to me to be particularly effective in the sense that once cross contamination has occurred, the immune system is going to do its thing -- or not. It doesn't seem to me to be analogous to creating a weakened "dose" for a vaccine. Am I missing something?

[Michael]

I think so. A hypothetical gradual introduction program might be as follows starting from absolute quarantine:

-stop changing clothes between old parrot and new
-stop washing hands old to new
-start putting new parrot on perches belonging to old
-let new eat leftovers of food from old
-stop washing hands new to old
-let parrots explore each other cages but not in direct contact
-let parrots come in natural contact

Mind you none of this has anything to do with social introduction. What I think this would do is spread out the quantity and type of infections over time. Washing hands may take care of a different pathogen than touching perches or coming into contact with loose feathers. As the cages are brought closer together, odds of a loose feather floating from bird to bird is greater. My parrots share/steel food from each other from time to time or drink from the same water source. The kind of germs that can be caught through shared water contact may be different than the ones caught through loose feathers or carried on your hands. I think it has to do with the properties of each microbe. Some might survive no more than 5 seconds outside a host while others can survive for hours. This will effect which ones might be able to make a jump across a 10ft room and which ones require the cages to be at a smaller separation. So by gradually decreasing quarantine and increasing types of contact, you can progressively introduce to the new microbial environment rather than all at once by putting the two parrots in direct contact where they can touch each other. This also has to do with quantity. I've spoken to a professor (not specifically expert in this field) about getting sick and he told me that there often is a threshold of how much exposure it takes before you really get sick from something. I don't think we were able to figure out if it has to do with the statistical probability of getting infected requiring a minimum amount of germs or that the body fights off smaller numbers easily until a threshold is reached.

This may be complete nonsense, meaningless paranoia, deliberate precautions, whatever you think, but it definitely won't harm anything. Just sharing my opinion and what I have done. Getting healthy birds from reliable sources of course is the best precaution of all. But even from a good source, quarantine protects the new bird as much as it is meant to protect the existing flock.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I've spoken to a professor (not specifically expert in this field) about getting sick and he told me that there often is a threshold of how much exposure it takes before you really get sick from something.

My Ph.D. is probably as good as his in this case, and I still have the gut feeling once you stop washing hands and changing clothes, and they are in the same airspace (within "sneeze distance", the only main vector left is direct physical contact with each other. It can't hurt to do what you are suggesting, it just seems like an awful lot of effort for minimal, if any, return. I'd like to hear from birdvet or someone with equivalent training on the subject... I'm not a biologist and I last studied the subject properly some years ago.

There are also two things munged together in this discussion -- one is disease and the other is exposure to normal microorganisms. I don't think exposure to another bird's "normal" flora requires an adaptation period. If it is a carrier of a disease, then, yes, the apparently healthy bird could transmit this to the existing flock. If it has some not normal but benign organisms the existing flock doesn't have, these will probably get transmitted, but it isn't the kind of process where gradual exposure is going to help. And the normal microorganisms are, well, normal. They might have local variations... I can imagine they vary from individual to individual as the population evolves... but I dont think gradual exposure to a new flavor shapes the immune response, which is really what I think you are thinking of. I could be wrong... but it doesn't math my mental model.

It is true that sometimes getting a slight case of a disease grants immunity, that's the whole idea behind vaccines, but I don't think we can control exposure to a useful extent in that context in a home setting... Plus different individuals are going to react differently to a given level of exposure -- ever share every item in a meal with someone and emerge perfectly fine while they, in contrast, wind up at the ER? In addition, exposure can build up in the way the professor you spoke to alluded but without granting immunity. I was living in Spain a few months before I finally succumbed to the native flora. I was chronically ill for a month or two, then my system adjusted, but the "gradual" exposure didn't really head off the process.

[Michael]

Well once again, whether flora or disease, much of it will not harm a strong healthy bird. Of course there are the deadly diseases and for those it is almost safe to assume that only the new bird could carry it (as the ones in your flock have survived thus far). Once again pardon my ignorance in this field, but I draw an analogue to people:

Send a child to daycare for the first time and he's practically guaranteed to get sick. This is because he'll be exposed to an array of new microbes from different people. Now what if we could (hypothetically) expose the child not to all the children at once but to one at a time for some period. The immune system can cope with a single new microbe (once again over simplifying it as any given child could have multiple different things going on) at a time but gets overwhelmed and sick when bombarded with many.

I use the term "microbes" loosely to mean illness, infection, disease, germs, viruses, and all that nasty stuff. I'm not sure what would be the all encompassing word for all of this. I try to say microbes for all the micro stuff that affects the parrot whether good, bad, or indifferent. I'm thinking that similar to how we can develop an allergic reaction to foreign bodies, the parrot still has to go through some process of introduction even if it is harmless microbes.

So the assumptions behind all my reasoning are:

1) The parrot can overcome introduction to new microbial environments
2) Introduction to many new microbes at once can lead to illness
3) Gradual introduction to microbes can afford a more directed immune response
4) Immunity is developed without any visible illness
5) Microbes are transferred between parrots in differing ways and quantities.

The 5th assumption is what makes me believe in this gradual process I had previously outlined. If this assumption is true, then gradually reducing our quarantine defenses can create a slower introduction of new microbes and thus afford the parrot to safely build immunity to the earlier encountered ones than the later.

Once again, I'm just testing some thoughts here that are based on very little so take with a grain of salt. Does anyone have the knowledge to accept/dismiss my basic assumptions?

[birdvet]

Hey birdvet, doing gradual introduction by exposing flock members one at a time makes sense to me, but I'm still struggling with concepts like gradually bringing the cages closer together or limiting the exposure time each day and then separating them again -- those don't seem to me to be particularly effective in the sense that once cross contamination has occurred, the immune system is going to do its thing -- or not. It doesn't seem to me to be analogous to creating a weakened "dose" for a vaccine. Am I missing something?

Man, this thread got away on me so apolgies if I miss/repeat something that has already been said. Gradually bringing cages closer together, IMHO, has only social benefits, no disease transmission prevention benefits, that is the purpose of the quarantine, to try and get a disease to rear its ugly head during that time frame (30-45 days). Once the birds are introduced to each other then the immune system is what we are relying on.

There are of course, as Michael has mentioned, bugs that are usually considered "normal" flora that may evoke a negative response from a naive bird...the same as kids going to daycare. But most of the time this isn't too much of a problem and often goes unnoticed by the carer/keeper indicating that the disease is not serious.

There are also two things munged together in this discussion -- one is disease and the other is exposure to normal microorganisms. I don't think exposure to another bird's "normal" flora requires an adaptation period. If it is a carrier of a disease, then, yes, the apparently healthy bird could transmit this to the existing flock. If it has some not normal but benign organisms the existing flock doesn't have, these will probably get transmitted, but it isn't the kind of process where gradual exposure is going to help. And the normal microorganisms are, well, normal. They might have local variations... I can imagine they vary from individual to individual as the population evolves... but I dont think gradual exposure to a new flavor shapes the immune response, which is really what I think you are thinking of. I could be wrong... but it doesn't math my mental model.

Yip, I agree, quarantine is usually not about the "normal" flora, we are pretty much leaving that up to the birds and hoping their immune system is developed enough to prevent them getting ill. Gradual exposure is probably not going to help just by sheer virtue of the fact that these micro-organisms are minute and most of the time can be carried by people in the respiratory system in the millions, so we spread them around to our birds just by breathing on them.

I am not an immunologist, by any stretch of the imagination, so don't take what I say as gospel on this topic. However, the quarantine that avian vets recommend seems to work most of the time as long as the quarantine period is strictly adhered to and proper precautions are taken during the 30-45 day period. Testing for the nasties, changing clothes, feeding and cleaning quarantine birds last and preferably having someone else do it so you don't have to expose your flock - this is for the zoo situation where, for eg. the vet team care for animals in quarantine and the bird keepers are not allowed anywhere near the facility. They only get access to the birds after 45 days and then they start the process of introducing the newbies to the flock.

The home situation is different and its often unavoidable that you will have contact with your new bird as well as your older birds. Change clothes, wash hands, separate food containers, separate washing up space, separate room (preferably on opposite sides of the house) and see to the quarantine birds last so you don't inadvertently spread anything to your established kids.

Hope this helps