In respect of Dr Marshall’s diagnostic techniques, I felt the least Gerald Binks could do was to move fast and buy some “Quik Gel” (available from Riversway Aviculture – here) just in case a problem occurred before obtaining anything else.

It is also available from Dr Marshall’s practice of course.

And, am I glad I did! My best light green adult cock is BA23-218-08, a super breeder and a bird I hope to show (yes, you saw it here first!) later this year.

What did I find about three weeks after it arrived? A very sick light green cock with all the usual chilled features and stained droppings in the breeding cage. It was quickly moved to my warm (always ready) hospital unit and “Quik Gel” administered until I re-read The Marshall “Plan”, as I will call it from now on.

I followed that with an antibiotic and gave it a course twice daily after expecting it to be dead the next morning. Not so. There it was, back on the perch, still unwell, but several days later really well again and able to be moved into a quiet stock cage.

And now? It’s 100% fit and without any bias at all it was the “Quik Gel” that gave the bird the fast energy required to get its recovery going forward quickly – instead of it going down and perhaps dying before an antibiotic took its effect.

I was personally very pleased and today I am giving it another month to convalesce and then he will be paired again.

As I have said earlier, this Avian Vet really knows his stuff – so what does cost matter if you save a precious budgerigar’s life with the right answer?

A word before the cynics comment that I have anything to gain from Dr Marshall’s involvement with this site. I assure everyone that that is not the case. I have written my experience above as a fancier. There have been many companies throughout my life, and chemists, that produce in all sincerity avian disease products which mostly are good, but from my experience there are so many who are not birdkeepers of any substance. Nice people I grant you in all cases, but not birdmen!

My advice is obvious! I do not have to spell it out.