Vaccination – Yes or no?

Most of the questions from the last few months were still related to the paratyphoid problem. I have already discussed the topic several times from different sides, but the questions keep coming up.

There still seems to be a lot of confusion on this topic. One of the reasons for this is that the opinions of the pigeon doctors on this subject can vary greatly. There are and will be veterinarians who, if a paratyphoid infection is detected, immediately advise treating all pigeons and then vaccinating the pigeons or not.

I call this the Pasteur school. Most veterinarians belong to this “school”. I too was a part of it for many years. Advocates of this approach have been in the majority for many decades. Rather, almost all pigeon doctors and veterinarians in general belong to the "Pasteur school". Pasteur is a giant in bacteriology. His opinion has been more or less the law for years. Pasteur adhered to the so-called Germ theory. This means that if an animal has a bacterium, it is responsible for the resulting disease.

This insight was also given to me with the mother's milk, like almost every veterinarian and doctor. It also makes sense. If an animal or a pigeon is ill, seriously ill, and a paratyphoid bacillus is found in that pigeon, then it is more than logical that we would treat a pigeon against that bacterium with an antibiotic to prevent the animal from dying. Since this pigeon is not usually alone in the loft, many veterinarians immediately advised that all pigeons should be treated "preventively" even if they are not ill.

As I said, I have also advised you to do this for years and you can still read this advice in older newsletters from me. On the one hand, that was because we all learned that as veterinarians and, on the other hand, because all pigeon doctors did it that way. But we should not always confuse the truth with the opinion of the majority. The opinion of a majority is often correct, but not always the salvation.

I was quite frustrated that breeders had taken a cure with a good remedy for paratyphoid, but then came back a good month later because they had paratyphoid in a number of pigeons again. First of all, when choosing the drug, one pays attention to a recurrence of the disease. However, this phenomenon could also occur if a sensitivity test had been carried out. The pigeons were then often worse than before the first treatment. Often several pigeons with thick elbow joints.

It has long been known that in many cases paratyphoid fever cannot be controlled with antibiotics alone. In the event of a clinical outbreak of paratyphoid, many veterinarians advise vaccinating pigeons against this disease. Well, for many diseases, including paratyphoid, vaccination is not a panacea. We can say with certainty that vaccination is a step in the right direction and that if you are vaccinated regularly, the symptoms will decrease in the long term.

Do we then have the problem under control? Cure and vaccinate and possibly disinfect the loft. Yes and no. We are seeing a decrease in complaints and clinical cases of paratyphoid as a result of this approach. Is it true that this way you can never have another pigeon dead from paratyphoid? No, that is not true. However, it's an approach that's going in the right direction. And only then heals? I no longer recommend that. Precisely because we see that after a cure, the symptoms can come back two months later.

What we definitely advise is to treat sick pigeons individually. But we now advise against a preventive treatment of all healthy pigeons. The reason is simple. Many drugs that work against paratyphoid “work even better” against the good bacteria in the gut. The latter are usually more strongly inhibited by the antibiotics used. This weakens the intestinal biome in its entirety. If the paratyphoid bacillus can recover faster than the good gut bacteria, then go for it “horse behind the cart”.

This brings me to a contemporary of Pasteur, Antoine Béchamps. This man believed that diseases only arise when environmental factors change in ways that give pathogens opportunities they didn't have before.

We all know the stories about cholera and typhoid that can break out during natural disasters, often in the tropics. Are these bacteria suddenly there? No, of course not, they've always been there, but the natural disaster made things more favorable for them, so they're back “resurrect” and could cause disease.

Béchamps was therefore a proponent of the theory that the environmental factors for the good bacteria should be improved so that the pathogens no longer stand a chance. Putting this theory into practice has led to the development of Bony PreviSal, which supports the good bacteria in the gut and makes life difficult for E. Coli and/or Salmonella pathogens.

Conditions are improving and the risk of outbreaks of these diseases is greatly reduced. If this procedure is endorsed, only the sick pigeons are treated in clinical cases, provided that they still occur. The entire pigeon colony is then not treated unnecessarily with antibiotics. Don't forget that antibiotic actually stands for "against life".

In summary, if you have a sick pigeon, treat it for the disease. Consider vaccination for shedders in the loft and do not treat all pigeons with antibiotics unless all pigeons are (fatally) ill. But choosing to support the microbiome is exactly what gives the good bacteria more leeway to take on the pathogens.

Same disease, different approach, for 5-6 years. Overall result very good. To use? No overuse of antibiotics and an improvement in the strength of the microbiome.

Remember: with a healthy microbiome, a pigeon will get sick much less quickly.

Much luck !

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