Megabacteriosis: Notes for Budgerigar Fanciers

Megabacteriosis is an infection of the stomach which interferes with the proper digestion of the food, and in the long term, the affected birds die of starvation. Some of the affected birds show retching or vomiting and some have diarrhoea. Occasionally birds die rapidly from this disease, and in these cases there has been the formation of an ulcers in the stomachs and the birds can bleed to death internally from these.

There appear to be different strains of this bacteria, some of which cause relatively rapid death, while others cause mild symptoms which can last for a long periods, months, and occasionally years, before the condition becomes serious.

Once this infection gets into a stud, you must expect occasional birds to go down with this disease. This is particularly prone to occur when the birds are subjected to stress, for example, when they are put down to breed, taken to shows or moved to a new owner's premises.

The disease is extremely common and the majority of studs are affected.

There is a drug which will eliminate the megabacteria from the birds, but only rather more than half the birds get better because, in some birds, the damage to the stomach is so severe that it never heals. To be effective it is essential to treat birds early on in the disease. It may be worth getting some of the drug to try treatment of any other birds which go down with weight-loss and the symptoms described above. The drug is amphotericin B which is sold under the trade name of Fungilin Suspension (manufactured by E R Squibb and Sons Ltd). Birds should be given 0.1 ml of this preparation into the beak, or preferably by crop tube, twice a day for at least 10 days. It is very important that there is no break in the treatment and that the doses are given at 12-hour intervals. I regret that it is not possible for me to treat affected birds here. You will be able to obtain the drug through your local veterinary surgeon; you may have to show him this letter and some of the birds before he will let you have it.

You may have read in the fancy press that the condition can be treated with various acids; I have tried a number of these completely without success

Unless you are prepared to dose all the birds as detailed above, there is no way of eradicating the infection from a stud with drugs available here. The Australians do have a drug which can be given in the drinking water to eliminate this infection, but unfortunately, it is not available in the UK. The immunity to this infection is weak, so that if treated birds are exposed to the infection again, for example at a show, or if an infected bird is bought and added to the stud, they are very likely to catch it and the disease may reappear.

While I have use amphotericin B in a very large number of birds without ill effect I am required to tell you that the product is not licensed for use in birds. This means that if some adverse reaction occurs you will have no claim on the manufacturers, the veterinary surgeon prescribing the product, nor myself.

Original text Copyright 1997, Dr John R Baker.

Back to Budgie Diseases