>the inclusion bodies were there. Anyway, I was raising a couple of
>fairly rare conures at the time and one of them died too. They were the
>next birds handled after the suns. Here's the thing: One chick died and
>one did not. We kept a deathwatch for two weeks afterwards, with me,
>our vet, and Dr Gaskins on the phone back and forth as the incubation
>period is (according to him) usually 5 to 7 days, and 5 to 14 days
>probably at most.
I've heard the incubation period can be as low as 2 days, as high as 21.
In that case, I'd have assumed the survivor was also exposed, and would
have treated it as a carrier bird.
I did not (and still don't) have access to the (non-commercially
available) blood test for polyoma titer. I wish I did. Given the
inaccuracy of the DNA test to detect shedders, if I found a
titer-positive bird from a blood test, it would be quickly quarantined.
>If babies that have carrier parents are pulled to early from the nest
>they usually die without the "immunities" being given them by the
>parents.
From what I understand, there are no polyoma immunities passed from
parent to baby. If this happened, then vaccinating breeder birds
would protect any resulting babies; this is not the case. Even after the
parents are vaccinated, there is a "window", from hatching until the
baby's own immune system kicks in, where any bird can be infected with
this (and any other) virus.
>Dr Gaskins wanted to test it really bad as he assumed it had
>seroconverted and had become a "carrier" due to the close exposure.
That's the problem with the titer test--seroconversion doesn't TELL
whether a bird is a carrier or just immune--it just shows that the bird
was exposed and developed antibodies to the virus. This caused great
confusion back in the early 80's, and caused the deaths of many birds
who were euthanized because they were "titer positive". It wasn't until
the DNA test was developed that they were able to tell if a bird is
really shedding the virus or not. They found that many titer positive
birds never shed the virus, and that the titer test was also inaccurate.
It was removed from the commercial market then.
>However, he was not sure. But, we never got to get it tested because it
>died in an accident.
That's too bad--it would have been interesting to see how his titer
levels looked. I wish I could have the "polyoma posse" here tested both
ways, just out of curiosity. It would be interesting to see how they
test on the titer test 2 years after testing DNA positive.
--Kathy
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