The Roller-Pigeon.Com Blog

Everyday I supplement my pigeon’s diet with probiotics: breeders, kit birds, weaning youngsters and broken up pairs and fosters.

I have found for my operation that a good probiotic supplement is A MAJOR KEY to good health and vitality in my pigeons; especially my breeders, fosters and kit birds.

I do continual breeding and fostering throughout the year and have found that my breeders as a rule no longer have wet droppings due to the daily use of probiotics, they are also VERY healthy and teaming with life.

While I rotate my Ruby breeders periodically throughout the year, I have certain foster pairs that have been setting on and raising youngsters for over a year. To look at them, you would not know it. Why? Probiotics.

Egg mortality is nearly non-existent, squabs dying in the nest has dropped to zero. I can directly correlate this to my DAILY use of Pro-Bios.

As for price, my opinion is the better deal is a powdered probiotic. As for convenience, it's also easier to measure, administer and powder is not messy as yogurt.

The other benefit is I can keep the powder in the loft, the yogurt has to be refrigerated and if you are like me, you'll forget to grab it on the way to the loft, then I have to go back to the house and get it, a real pain in the rear!

The cost of a 4 oz container of yogurt costs about 45 to 50 cents. To ensure optimum health in my birds, I use probiotics everyday, so for 1 container a day (I would need 2 or possibly 3 a day), my cost would be $12 to $15 a month not counting cold storage for yogurt.

Even when you include shipping, at worst, the price is about even anyways. All things being equal, I would prefer to use a probiotic product that in this case is formulated for the nutritional needs of pigeons.

I started my proactive health maintenance program by using Neomycin 325 which I found to be ideal in eliminating Enteritis (a fouling of the pigeons gut bacteria).

Enteritis will make the droppings foul and stinky especially in the breeders and youngsters in the nest and more importantly contributing to higher mortality from e-coli and salmonella invasion of eggs and squabs.

In my research I found that Enteritis IS THE major reason for wet droppings in breeders, NOT drinking too much water as is commonly believed (although too much water can cause it). (Cliff, another myth-masher opportunity missed, LOL)

Health in your rollers should be your number one priority, for without it, you can never get optimum results from your breeders or kit birds.