Sad though this is, it is undoubtedly true and you can bet that the sick bird that you have noticed is one of the better examples that you own. There are two reasons why most sick birds are lost. Firstly, when a bird looks ill, it really is ill and very often the approaching symptoms are undetectable. In addition, many of the medicines that we provide are water soluble and sick birds don't tend to drink. Few fanciers inject medicine directly into the crop where it will do the most good.
Prevention is the key to health management in any aviary.
It should be noted that on no account should antibiotics be fed on a routine basis. All this will do is kill the friendly bacteria that are in the flora of our bird's gut and leave them potentially open to infection that can now invade. Also, the routine administering of antibiotics may result in creating harmful organisms that are immune to the antibiotic. Finally, it should be remembered that medication of any kind is liable to upset the delicate balance of the natural bacterial flora within the bird's gut. To counteract this, the provision of a soluble probiotic for our birds would be a sensible action to take.