Managing Disease Outbreaks in Captive Flocks of Birds

Abstract

The modern avian practitioner may be called upon to manage disease outbreak in aviary or zoologic bird flocks. Traditionally, managing these types of disease events has been based on avicultural production principles, which may require modification to adapt to the modern leisure, educational, or exhibition aviary. We discuss how principles of avicultural medicine and disease investigation may be adapted to the aviary flock and illustrate these modified principles with real-world examples.

Keywords: Avian diseases; Chlamydia psittaci; Erisypelothrix rhusopathiae; Escherichia coli; Flock management; Plasmodium relictum; Salmonella typhimurium.