>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.
I HAVE to jump in here. This isn't entirely true. I had a run-in with
polyoma in 1993. I had sent some babies to be handfed while I went on
vacation, and they were exposed to polyoma while at the feeder's. (To
read the whole story, find a November 1994 issue of Bird Breeder--we had
the whole thing published). ALL of them were nearly weaned when they
were exposed. 3 out of 4 of them tested positive for the virus, but did
not ever get sick or die. Obviously their immune systems worked, but not
entirely, or they'd have fought it off and never become carriers.
Since this problem happened, I've spent a lot of time reading and
talking to Dr. Ritchie himself about polyoma. Adult birds MAY become
infected with the virus. But the difference is, if they do, they almost
never get sick--at the worst, you might see some fluffed feathers for a
few days. Worst case outcome of this is if they become carriers; best
case scenario, they just fight it off and become immune. But they CAN be
infected as adults.
As a result of that magazine article, my friend and I spent most of the
spring and early summer talking to bird clubs about polyoma, backed by
articles, slides and info provided by Dr. Ritchie.
>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.
Hehehe...you are SO right about this! The title Bird Breeder put on our
polyoma article was "It's not me, must be the other guy"...
>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!
No, don't! I tell everyone not to take risks, constantly! I'm sure the
echo is probably sick of my paranoia by now.  But don't back down
from what you believe--the birds will suffer if we let down our guard
against these nasty diseases. The polyoma vaccine should be out soon, I
hope. That'll be one less virus to worry about. But there are still
several others; Pacheco's, PFBD, PDS and all the ones they haven't
discovered yet... as I said in my talks, a little healthy paranoia goes
a long way toward keeping your birds alive.
--Kathy
 * SLMR 2.1a *
--- FLAME v1.1
---------------