Budgies certainly can carry it and it even used to be called Budgie Fledgling
Bleeding Syndrome or something. Budgies fostered to other nests ending up
dead.
However, the problem really lies in someone having infected birds.
Next, the problem lies in people fostering out birds to handfeeders taking in
birds from more than one source. ALWAYS a problem. Almost no way to track it 
to the source. Especially without a lot of testing.
The dead babies are probably not the problems unless possibly they were taken
as teeny tiny chicks from infected parents.
Parents and nestboxes can be swabbed for polyoma for Dr. Ritchies test. A lot 
of people here are swabbing the box to see if it was in the chicks 
environment.
Also the handfeeders nursery can be swabbed with culturette swabs, air vents
a/c filters/vents, corners, brooders, baby boxes, utensils anything.
Walls can be scrubbed with bleach or other antiviral solutions and carpets 
are a bit harder to do. Styrofoam and organic things like wood are a little 
harder to do and really can't be sterilized.
However, living babies that survived may or may not be the problem. Polyoma 
only affects neonates (babies with undeveloped immune systems/ie are not yet
feathered) or possibly birds with severely compromised immune systems. If a 
bird is about feathered chances are it's immune system has already kicked in 
and it wont' catch it. That's about 2-3 weeks for budgies & lovebirds, 4-6
weeks on'tiels, 6 weeks or so on conures,and 9 to 16 weeks on large birds.
Several vets here have said they feel lovebirds are somehow  or hve somehow 
become natural carriers of polyoma as they have almost never seen a case in 
which a lovebird was not in the nursery or house.
It is very easily spread by hands, clothing,etc. This year when feeding my 
baby macaws I changes shirts every time I fed them and scrubbed w/Oxyfresh 
(having soaked instuments in Kennelsol a quaternium ammonia solution) and 
even wore
gloves when they were very small. Lovebirds no longer come in the house much 
as I love them. I have a flight half an acre away that Ed takes care of 
solely. I
no longer handfeed them and refer people elsewhere for LB's. I have not yet 
had
time to test all of the LB's I have but am working on it. I can get them done 
at the U of Fl. Until that time I won't raise them.
Polyoma is a disease that can break up partnerships and friends. It is very 
easy to start tossing the blame at someone that they killed your baby. 
Everyone try to stay calm and investigate the beginnings of the outbreak.
Really you can't blame the feeder because of the outbreak. It had to come 
from somewhere. And people did voluntarily place their babies there. As long 
as she took all reasonable care to prevent an outbreak.... However, on the 
other hand, it isn't really good practice to be taking in birds from allover 
and from all
different sources  in the first place.
I'll get off my soapbox now!
Barbara
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