AGY Came Back

[Teddscau]

It came back guys! Freaking AGY! I hate it! I'm gonna have to medicate everyone! I'll have to phone the expensive vet for like a gallon of amphotericin B (slight exaggeration), get them all into leper cages (seven budgie's in the double-flight, two green devils in the flight), disinfect literally everything every freaking day, get gram staining done weekly on Jasper (I'm praying she wasn't accidentally exposed)... They're going to stay in their leper cages for at least 4 months before they're allowed back in the aviary, because it's going to be a nightmare having to disinfect it (I'm dreading cleaning it). I'm going to have to constantly change my clothes, too.

After they've finished their course of meds, I'm gonna be having gram stains done monthly on everyone (it's a pain collecting poop, so I'm going to be constantly dropping off poop).

 

[noodles123]

It came back guys! Freaking AGY! I hate it! I'm gonna have to medicate everyone! I'll have to phone the expensive vet for like a gallon of amphotericin B (slight exaggeration), get them all into leper cages (seven budgie's in the double-flight, two green devils in the flight), disinfect literally everything every freaking day, get gram staining done weekly on Jasper (I'm praying she wasn't accidentally exposed)... They're going to stay in their leper cages for at least 4 months before they're allowed back in the aviary, because it's going to be a nightmare having to disinfect it (I'm dreading cleaning it). I'm going to have to constantly change my clothes, too.

After they've finished their course of meds, I'm gonna be having gram stains done monthly on everyone (it's a pain collecting poop, so I'm going to be constantly dropping off poop).

Oh man, what a nightmare...How do you know it's AGY (it seems like a tricky one to diagnose without radiology etc) https://wagwalking.com/bird/condition/megabacteriosis

 

[Laurasea]

Its hard to get rid of

Hopefully you will, my sympathies

 

[Teddscau]

Luckily most of my birds are either subclinical or don't have symptoms associated with the disease. Some of them might not even have the disease, but everyone (except Jasper, unless she comes back positive) is getting treated this time around, regardless. Last time, only the birds who were actively shedding the yeast were treated, but clearly that doesn't do the trick. And, you know how people talk about how brutal the treatment is on the birds? For Rumi and Pollo at least, they seemed completely fine, before, during, and after treatment. Then again, there's still a lot of misinformation out their, even among the veterinary community concerning this disease.

The viral load (yeast load?) in the two girls who were tested (Lara and Birdie) was low, so I'm thinking even the times I have accidentally smeared "contaminated" feces outside of the aviary (we all have birds, so you know how easy it is to accidentally smear feces on your furniture without realizing it, then just wipe it up with water and paper towel instead of breaking out the disinfectant), the spread of the pathogen was minimal.

My mom was researching the disease yesterday while I was busy having my (understandable) emotional breakdown, and it seems that the most common way the disease is spread is through water with contaminated poop in it (as we all know, birds like using their water dishes as toilets), or by regurgitating for each other. And I imagine when they they eat an infected bird's vomit after they've projectile vomited seeds everywhere. Huh, maybe I'll quit giving them millet until they're plague-free, seeing as the little dorks will keep trying to eat the mysterious gooey, yeasty clumps of millet their friends have "deposited" everywhere. As far as I know, Birdie's the only one who's vomiting, and she'll be getting her own cage since she's so immune compromised (cancer, liver disease, and a dying heart).

I've ordered a couple of glass water bottles for the kids (yay glass!), and from now on they're only allowed dishes of open water when they're bathing. Certain individuals (probably Noah) keep pooping in the water dishes, and nobody needs to be reinfected that way.

It's gonna be a pain getting the meds for them (I imagine I won't be getting the meds for several days), so in the meantime I'll be disinfecting the entire house, except for the aviary and cages, just to get the number of yeast spores or whatever down. I also removed the perch I gave Jasper that they'd used before just in case, and I'm going to soak it in Pet Focus cleaner for an hour, and disinfect her cage (Birdie flew onto it a few days ago, but her feet didn't look dirty and I don't think she pooped, so the cage probably has too low of a level of AGY to infect Jasper who appears to be one of my healthiest birds).

I'm going to get my parents to medicate Noah and Rosie so they don't end up hating me.

 

[Laurasea]

This is very informative, and AGY is out there.

" I've ordered a couple of glass water bottles for the kids (yay glass!), and from now on they're only allowed dishes of open water when they're bathing. Certain individuals (probably Noah) keep pooping in the water dishes, and nobody needs to be reinfected that way."
Glass is so great to clean and inhibits growth. Plastic is the worst! I had tried to switch go plastic water dishes and they grew slime in one day yuck, the stainless steel much less slime growth! I change out the water multiple times a day, but tge plastic was so gross

 

[Teddscau]

Yeah, I only feel comfortable giving them water in glass or stainless steel. Plastic is porous on a microscopic level, which bacteria love (that's why you get a slimy biofilm in plastic dishes), and they also leach chemicals.

I've ordered probiotics and a new thing of disinfectant for them, and I think I'll order another brand of probiotics as well since they have five additional strains of bacteria in it that the brand I ordered from didn't have.

I've decided against giving Birdie the Amphotericin B, since the vet told me she's basically dying this point from heart disease (her heartbeat was so fast that he couldn't hear the individual beats), and if she gets too stressed she could easily have a heart attack. I'm just going to treat her minor eye infection, and give her probiotics, antifungal herbs, and keep her in a nice clean cage. She's still in very good spirits, but I don't think she could handle the anti-fungal meds.

 

[Teddscau]

Know what? I've decided not to medicate any of them unless they're actively vomiting or experiencing weight loss. I'm going to routinely give them probiotics, regularly disinfect the aviary, perform monthly gram stains on feces (I'll have crop swabs performed on my birds who are immune compromised to double-check how germy they are), remove any particularly "yeasty" birds for supportive therapies (daily disinfecting, supplementing with vitamins, heat, etc.), and mix anti-fungal herbs into their wet food.

Here's some links to consider (if I just had a couple of birds, then I'd consider trying to completely eliminate it from my aviary):

http://avianmedicine.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/30_macrorhabdus.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30085075/
http://www.medycynawet.edu.pl/images/stories/pdf/pdf2016/042016/201604237239.pdf
Avian Gastric Yeast - David N. Phalen

And finally, here's side effects of (injectable) Amphotericin B in humans:
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/ambisome-amphotericin-b-liposomal-999576#4


I'm still gonna disinfect the house, though. Don't want Jasper getting it.

 

[Teddscau]

I spoke with my vet yesterday concerning my treatment plan for the kiddos, and he agreed that this was probably a better plan than treating with Amphotericin B. Many people consider the side effects of Amphotericin B (various mineral deficiencies, pain, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, suppressed appetite, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, respiratory distress, kidney damage, etc.) to be worse than the effects of AGY. This is why the majority of vets recommend only treating birds who test positive for the yeast (there's a lot of false negatives), however this poses a real risk of reinfecting treated birds, as the untreated birds could easily end up shedding the yeast at a later time, reinfecting treated birds. Also, even if all birds are treated and everything is disinfected, reinfection is still a very serious risk.

Some researchers argue that AGY is actually a normal part of a bird's microbiome, and it only poses a potential problem if the bird's gut biome goes out of whack, due to things such as stress or antibiotic treatment. In fact, research shows that considering the percentage of captive birds who are carriers of AGY (30–50%), only a very small number show symptoms associated with the condition.

I also spoke with my vet about treating my birds with sodium benzoate in their water to try to eliminate the yeast, and he gave me the go ahead. I've ordered a milligram scale to measure out the sodium benzoate, now I just need to buy the sodium benzoate (I'll probably need to buy the ingredient online).