LUBARP: Going Light

The Liverpool University Budgerigar Ailment Research Project, sponsored by the Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales including the Isle of Man Budgerigar Society, was started in 1984 and ran for 8 years.

The topic chosen for 1984-5 was 'going light'. Many diseases of cage birds make them lose weight and 'go light' and it was initially thought that the investigation would just reveal a mixture of all sorts of diseases. While this was partly true, one condition in particular stood out as being very common. In this disease there is degeneration of the lining of the intestine, where the bulk of the food is absorbed; the lining goes on degenerating, less and less food is absorbed and eventually the bird dies of starvation.

The question then arose as to why the intestine degenerated. The nature of the changes suggested the possibility that this was a type of allergic reaction and this was shown to be the case; it was initially hoped that only one food type would be involved but it eventually transpired that almost any food could induce the condition. So why did the birds show this 'allergy'? Some fanciers suggested that the condition ran in families and to see if this was the case birds going light were collected and received a treatment which is both expensive and impractical for fanciers to use. A number of these birds were thus brought into breeding condition and their chicks suffered from the condition where those from normal birds did not. To summarise the findings, 'going light' is an inherited predisposition to a sensitivity to food components and lines of birds where the condition has been proved to be present should not be used for breeding.

Original text Copyright 1985, Dr John R Baker.

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