Sick for Aviary?

[Jimmyness]

I often like to spend time just sitting in my aviary with my birds but my Dad always tells me to get out as he said one of his friend got realy sick and needed to go to hopital because he got an illness from spending too much time in his aviary, and that it has something to do with breathing in in the dust from budgie droppings or something like that. Does anyone know if you can get sick from this?

[Canni]

If birds are infected they can give humans psittacosis - a flu like disease.

You should test your birds after you buy them for this as its fairly contagious and if you are spending lots of time with your birds it can make you and your bird sick.

To avoid it you need to keep the cage very clean and use a good disinfectant (make sure birds are removed from avairy whilst doing this and you rinse everything very well).

[pixibubbles]

if birds have it they usually have symptons of some sort... if your birds are healthy it is very unlikely you will cantch anything from them and vice versa to you giving anything to them so long as you are healthy.

it could be that your dad's friend picked it up somewhere else completely or he had an already existing condition aggravated by birds feathers and dust.

[Canni]

Actually in most cases birds are carriers of it.. usually they will only then show symptoms if their immune system is weakened).. that is why it's highly recommended to get a fecal test done with every new bird.