Diseases of Pigeons Reared on Small-Holdings in Bangladesh

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken on dead pigeons to explore the diseases and conditions associated with the death of pigeons reared at smallholdings and sold at live-bird markets in Bangladesh. 108 dead pigeons were collected from 2 live-bird markets-one in Dhaka and other based at Chittagong districts, 38 smallholdings, of which 20, 3, 3, 5 and 7 were located in Jessore, Dhaka, Chittagong, Magura and Jhenaidah districts respectively. Initially the collected dead pigeons were preserved at the households’ refrigerators and then transferred to the department of Microbiology, Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, where they were further frozen at -84°C until investigated. All the collected dead pigeons were thoroughly examined postmortem. From each of the dead pigeon (except decomposed carcasses) bacteriological examination done through taking samples from the liver with sterile cotton swabs, and inoculated onto at least two media- McConkey and Mueller-Hinton agar (supplemented with 5% defrinated sheep blood). To identify the organism for any bacterial growths on these two media were examined using the standard procedures. The 4 major disease/conditions associated with the deaths of the pigeons were cervical disruption & related haemorrhages (17.6%), colibacillosis (13.89%), external injuries (8.33%) and morbus cordis (10.18%).