I was contacted recently by a woman who wants to buy my next male Jenday
baby. She lost her last pet Jenday (a hen) to Macaw Wasting Disease
(proventricular dilitation syndrome), coupled with chronic egg-laying
problems, last November, a year after she was first diagnosed. I spoke
to her at length about this. She's an older woman (mid-50's), and misses
her pet desperately.
She has a pet Senegal also, which lived with the Jenday for the last 3
years prior to its death. She understands that the disease may take a
long time to appear in an infected bird. Her Jenday was a sickly bird
for years before finally being diagnosed; she says the Senegal is
healthy as a horse, nothing like the Jenday ever was. She watches his
health like a hawk; he gets regular vet check-ups.
She attempted to contact Dr. Ritchie by letter after her bird died, but
he didn't answer. (I'm not surprised--he's awfully busy these days).
She's collected what info she can find about PDS from bird magazines;
but of course, that's never enough.
If she DOES get a baby from me, it will probably be the one that just
hatched yesterday (unless it's a girl--she's afraid of having another
hen for fear of ending up with another egg-layer). So by the time it's
weaned, it would have been almost a full year since the sick Jenday has
been out of her home. She said she did clean and wash everything she
could (I didn't find out what she used to disinfect though).
I am hesitant to sell her a baby for fear of putting it into danger from
this disease. I plan to speak to Dr. Ritchie about this as soon as I can
contact him by phone, and I told her to call him also to get his opinion
on bringing any birds into her home. Whatever he says we should do will
be the final decision. But this is a hard problem. I need to hear from
anyone who's had to deal with something like this.
Those of you who breed birds, would YOU sell a bird into this home?
--Kathy
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