introducing 2 parakeets to each other?

[Sumatra503]

I rarely quaranteen if there are no immediate signs or parasites or communicable diseases. It is a good idea, but you won't end up killing off all your birds if you go without the quaranteen unless the bird has a deadly disease. The way I see it is if the new bird had some dangerous disease that could kill your old birds, then it would already be dead or at least showing signs of said disease. There are only a few of these diseases that can be carried without showing any signs and in that case you don't know anyway.

I highly doubt that after such a short time the female could have died from a disease she caught from the male. If it had been a disease that fast acting the male would be dead as well and probably would've died long before he came to the new home.

 

[Akane]

Some illnesses may show no immediate signs and be quite deadly. You'll find reports of it happening to chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and parakeets. Here's a very good example http://www.talkbudgies.com/showthread.php?t=49765 even after a 6week quarantine and other birds falling ill the new ones managed to hide their illness. It's entirely possible one or both may have died before finding they were ill if they hadn't been tested on a hunch. Everyone strongly suggests a quarantine. http://talkbudgies.com/showthread.php?t=20111

 

[Sumatra503]

Most of the birds are just carriers of the deadly diseases if they don't show any signs. a carrier will not show any signs or symptoms of the disease and will not become sick. They have the ability to infect other healthy birds, but will not become sick themselves. The only way to tell that a bird is a carrier is to have a blood test performed on the bird.If the bird does not show signs of a disease after a 6 week quarantine, but still ends up killing your other birds it was most likely a carrier of the disease.

It happens with chickens all the time, because diseases like Marek's disease, New Castle, and sometimes Bronchitis have the ability to remain dormant within a carrier for years and birds that have not been infected may catch that disease from the carrier and die. A quarantine will not have an effect on the dormant disease within the carrier and your birds will become ill if exposed to the carrier.

A quarantine is effective, but only if the signs of the disease become apparent during the quarnatine. If the bird is a carrier or just doesn't show any signs, then the disease will get passed the quarantine and your other birds will get sick. If the disease isn't apparent within the bird, then a quarantine is useless. It mainly works for the less serious diseases that aren't as good at hiding themselves.

The situation where they blood tested the birds and found the disease, most likely wouldn't have resulted in both of them dying. the new birds were most likely carriers of the disease and that's why they didn't show any symptoms.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to quarantine, I'm just stating what I do with my birds. I quarantine for about two weeks. I have not lost any birds to communicable diseases regardless of this shorter quaranteen.