trichomonosis

[Sprout]

i am in a quandry and would appreciate some opinions and advice from the experts.
over the week-end our lovely bullfinch died from, i am assuming, trichomonosis. we used to have two males and one female visit daily, this is the only one (male) we've seen for a couple of months. it is the fourth bird death in our garden over the last six months - two chaffinches, a wood pigeon and now the bullfinch. we used to get lots of greenfinches too, but haven't seen hide nor hair of any for a long time so i'm making another assumption regarding them and trichomonosis.
i keep the feeders and bird baths scrupiously clean but am beginning to wonder about stopping feeding altogether as no matter how clean they are, as soon as one infected bird visits then i presume they are infected all over again. even if they're not picking trich up from my garden, they're probably spreading it here.
so what do i do? should i stop feeding altogether or carry on as i am? with winter approaching i am reluctant to not feed the birds but am i doing more harm than good? this last beautiful bullfinch death has really upset me, it's death was a long, longering unpleasant thing to witness and i really don't want to be the unwitting cause of any more
thank you for any advice.

[faz]

read the posts in the bird forum dated 27/10/10

[Dogghound]

If you are maintaining good hygiene then I would carry on feeding them. The loss of a feeding site over the winter is never a good thing for birds.

What makes you think it is trichomonosis? do all the dead birds show symptoms? birds die in lots of ways, 4 birds in 6 months is not a huge number.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

If you are maintaining good hygiene then I would carry on feeding them. The loss of a feeding site over the winter is never a good thing for birds.
What makes you think it is trichomonosis? do all the dead birds show symptoms? birds die in lots of ways, 4 birds in 6 months is not a huge number.

This is very bad advice.

Even if you scrub the feeders every day, the disease is still all over the ground, all over the area, and you are still attracting healthy birds into very close (unnaturally close) proximity to diseased birds. It doesn't matter how clean the plates are if you're sat next to a cholera victim in a restaurant!

Secondly, it's not winter. It's autumn - the absolute glut time for wild food. There is more than enough. The real pinch time for finches is later spring - after the aitumn glut has gone but before the need growth has set seed.

All of the advice is to stop feeding immediately if you suspect trichomoniasis. It has killed half a million greenfinches alone in the past few years, as well as hundreds of thousands of other birds. It sounds very much like trich' (dead birds found, all the main species), but even if it isn't then it's probably salmonellosis, which is almost as bad.

Stop feeding for at least three few weeks. Give them a chance. Dig over the ground around the feeding area. If you see any more fluffed-up (i.e. sick) birds, stop feeding again. You might have to stop feeding completely for a long time (the whole winter), but that's miles better than killing the birds you're trying to help 9which is what seems to be happening at the moment).

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by RKB

Secondly, it's not winter. It's autumn - the absolute glut time for wild food. There is more than enough. The real pinch time for finches is later spring - after the aitumn glut has gone but before the need growth has set seed.

Fair enough I was possibly a bit dismissive.

Before you get to critical of me, the OP said stop feeding all together this includes winter.

[Sprout]

thank you for your responses.
obviously i'm not an expert but the way the 4 birds have died is what's lead me to think it's trich - all 4 have behaved in a very odd way over the days leading up to their death, fluffed up, sitting at the feeders but not actually feeding, wiping their beaks, very slow and bumbling around, and then finally just sitting there until they died. the final minute for the pigeon was that it sat on the fence, it's chest heaving, then flew off and literally dropped out of the air like a stone, this after behaving in an odd way for maybe a week.
i know that 4 birds in 6 months is not a huge number...but they're only the ones i've actually witnessed dying in my garden, heaven knows how many others have died elsewhere that i've not been aware of, probably the other male and the female bullfinches to name but two. and almost certainly the greenfinches which used to visit in huge numbers.
my initial thought was to stop feeding and i think that's what i'll do.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Fair enough I was possibly a bit dismissive.

Before you get to critical of me, the OP said stop feeding all together this includes winter.

Wasn't being critical of you, just the advice. It's probably preferable that they did stop feeding altogether, and lots of other people too, until this epidemic subsides. No point in boosting the finch population with artificial food with one while, while killing them through disease with the other.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Sprout

obviously i'm not an expert but the way the 4 birds have died is what's lead me to think it's trich - all 4 have behaved in a very odd way over the days leading up to their death, fluffed up, sitting at the feeders but not actually feeding, wiping their beaks, very slow and bumbling around, and then finally just sitting there until they died.

That's classic 100% trichomoniasis. It's important that you stop feeding immediately - remove all feeders and bird baths. Stop for at least 3 weeks. Keep a very close eye out if you start again, and remove feeders as soon as you see any fluffed up bird.

You're right, lots more will have died unseen.