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Our doctors believe that a physical and behavioral consultation is the cornerstone to good avian medicine. During the exam your doctor will review the history form you filled out prior to your office visit. The doctor will outline what steps should be taken to keep your avian companion both physically and psychologically healthy. The exam will review diet, feather care, foraging behaviors and their application in the home along with basic training for birds. Your bird will be examined in the most humane and respectful manner possible; and, for new or baby birds, a recheck will often be scheduled to consolidate material reviewed in the initial consultation.
We recommend an annual exam for all species of birds. This is particularly important as they often hide signs of illness until they can no longer compensate. An annual exam will help to catch problems before they turn into a crisis. You can also help to catch problems early by weighing your bird on a gram scale twice weekly at home. They are inexpensively purchased from a kitchenware store and can be the best early warning device when you bird is feeling sick.
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Some species of birds can be sexed from their physical appearance or may have a history of egg laying. If it is not possible to determine the sex, we recommend sexing your bird via DNA testing. Reproductive disease is a common cause of illness in female birds. Knowing the sex of your bird will help the doctor form a list of rule outs should it become sick. A simple non-invasive swab from your bird’s mouth or vent is all that’s required to get the necessary DNA cell sample.
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We recommend a fecal exam on your bird’s first visit. We will be checking for various intestinal parasites such as giardia, avian gastric yeast, and candida. It is particularly important to check a fecal test if you own small finches or a budgerigar as they seem to be prone to more problems than some of the larger psittacine species.
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One size does not fit all species of birds. Diagnostic recommendations will be tailored to your bird’s specific needs. As a broad recommendation, we advise doing a basic blood test every 2 years if your bird is healthy. If your bird is sick, we may recommend additional tests such as bacterial cultures, radiographs or screening for various infectious diseases such as chlamydophila, circovirus or polyomavirus. |
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An appropriate diet is one of the keys to having a healthy bird. While studies on poultry have been extensive, little research exists on the precise needs of companion birds. Even within the over 300 different species of parrots, nutritional requirements differ greatly. A Lori is not a macaw is not a budgie.
In the past, people have fed a largely seed based diet which, while excessive in carbohydrates and fat, was lacking in protein and many vitamins and minerals. Even the better quality seed mixes allow a bird to feed selectively on favored items such as sunflower seed, resulting in an unbalanced and potentially harmful diet. While your bird might survive for many years on this diet, it will eventually take its toll on your bird’s health, leading to a variety of ailments such as egg binding, respiratory disease, poor feather and skin quality, obesity, and tumors.
The current trend in avian nutrition is moving towards formulated diets or “pellets”. This ensures a more nutritionally balanced diet than seeds alone. However it is not likely that one particular pellet alone can supply the needs of all species of birds. We cannot possibly replicate what a wild bird would eat on its daily and seasonal foraging adventures. As a result, a limited quantity of pellets should be fed along with fresh vegetables and a small amount of fruit and seeds to try and give your bird a varied and healthy diet. Seeds or nuts can then be used as food rewards when trying to positively reinforce desired behaviors during a training session. Feed enough for your bird’s daily caloric requirements, but not so much that it becomes picky or does not respond to favored food items for training purposes. We recommend and stock Harrison’s bird food. It is organic, does not contain food colorings, and is made with human grade food products. However, it is more important that your bird eats some pellets than the particular brand you feed.
While fresh vegetables are great for your bird, we recommend restricting them to just 2 or 3 types at a time to avoid the perception of abundance. Variety is great, but they don’t all have to be provided every day. A frozen vegetable mix is a convenient way to accomplish this. Only a small amount of fruit should be fed as it has relatively low nutritional value and is high in simple carbohydrates.
If your bird will not accept a commercial diet then a home cooked diet will prove much healthier than an exclusive seed mix. Stay tuned for a good article on how to go about doing this.
Please note that regularly offering a warm or soft food diet can stimulate regurgitation, a pair bonding activity that can cause problems with your bird’s behavior. A better way to feed your bird is to “give it a job”. Let your bird work to earn the good tasting things it likes through either training and positive reinforcement or captive foraging techniques.
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Converting a bird from a seed based diet to a formulated diet must be done with care. Many birds will initially not recognize pellets as a potential food source. They will need to be taught by you, their avian “parent”. Most of a bird’s learning is observational, so you need to be the teacher. During the conversion process it is important that you weigh your bird daily with a gram scale to ensure that your bird is not losing weight. Your bird should never lose more than 10% of its normal body weight. Never try and convert a bird that is already sick. If you need help, our staff will be happy to advise you, or we can even do a diet conversion for you at the hospital if you’re having difficulty at home. Here’s a link to a great diet conversion article by Dr Brian Speer:
http://www.medicalcenterforbirds.com/files/10334219.pdf
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Avoid foods such as avocado, caffeine, and chocolate which are toxic to your bird. It is also a good idea to avoid feeding sugary or salty snacks that are not healthy for us, let alone your birdie buddy. This also applies to feeding your bird animal based proteins such as chicken, tuna or red meats. Parrots are not carnivores; at most some of the cockatoo species would have some insect protein in their diet. While many birds will accept animal protein if you offer it, various diseases such as salmonella, E.coli and campylobacter can be passed on to your bird, potentially resulting in illness. It’s simple common sense. If it’s not a carnivore, why are you feeding it meat? If you want to offer insect protein to those species that have been found to eat grubs as part of there natural diet, small numbers of waxworms or mealworms might be a better choice.
We also recommend avoiding milk products such as cheese. Birds do not have the enzyme lactase that is necessary to digest the main sugar in milk, lactose. Again, use common sense. When was the last time you saw a parrot getting a free meal from a dairy cow? Just because your bird will eat it doesn’t mean it’s healthy. |
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For birds weighing over 100 grams, we recommend having a microchip implanted for permanent identification. Discomfort and cost are minimal, and if your bird escapes or is stolen, it is the only way to identify it, unless it has a closed permanent leg band (and even leg bands can be removed). |
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Birds are meant to fly. It is natural to feel equivocal about trimming their wings. However in the home environment, a bird can soon run into trouble by running into ceiling fans, windows, other family pets, stove tops and toilet bowls or even escaping if left untrimmed. Conversely a bad wing trim with feathers trimmed too short can cause your bird to crash land and injure itself, or start feather picking because of discomfort. Primary feathers left too long from a “cosmetic cut” can result in wing fracture or breakage of unsupported blood feathers. The pitfalls and opinions are many, and again one size does not fit all. If your bird is a heavy bodied bird like an African Grey or an Amazon, only a minor trim might be necessary, where a light bodied bird like a cockatiel may need a more extensive trim. If your bird is a baby, it may not need trimming at all so that it can gain the self-confidence to know how to fly before it is deprived of the ability.
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Conversely, if you are teaching your bird how to forage, then a trim may be necessary initially to enable you to work with your bird. |
A correct wing trim will not render your bird incapable of flight altogether. It will still be able to glide and therefore be swept away by an updraft of wind. For this reason we recommend that no bird should go outside without being in a cage or in a harness. As you can see wing trimming is not just a cosmetic procedure and has many potential issues associated with it. For this reason we only do wing trims after first conducting an examination on your bird. Subsequent trims will be done by one of our qualified technicians. Please note that an incorrect wing trim may take a number of molting cycles to correct completely.
A normal healthy bird should not need a beak trim. Providing your bird with pet safe toys and chewing activities will not only help wear down the beak, but will provide hours of entertainment. A concrete perch can also help a bird to wear the excess keratin from its beak by a wiping action. This perch can also help wear down nails too, although it should not be the top most perch in your birds cage, or where your bird spends most of its time. These perches can be hard on your bird’s feet and softer alternatives like rope and natural wood perches should also be provided in a variety of widths. Sandpaper perches are not recommended; they are ineffective for wearing down nails and will result in abrasion of your bird’s delicate feet. If your bird does require a nail trim our technicians can do this for you, or teach you how to do it at home. An overgrown beak will be trimmed by a veterinarian with a dremmel grinding tool after first making sure there is no medical reason for abnormal growth.
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| Enriching Your Birds Life |
Many parrots are given up or sold on to unsuspecting owners every year due to undesirable behaviors. It may be screaming, aggression, feather plucking, self-mutilation, or undesirable sexual behaviors like regurgitation, masturbation or cloacal prolapse that disrupt the human-animal bond. All of these represent a failure on the part of the human to understand their bird’s behavioral needs. Purchase of a bird and setting it up in a cage with little regard for it’s social, nutritional, and grooming needs, is setting your bird up for failure. Given the longevity and intelligence of many members of the parrot family, choosing to share your life with an avian companion is a little like adopting a toddler. If you just want a pretty shoulder trophy in a cage, the novelty will soon wear off.
It is essential for your parrot’s mental well being that it is allowed a balance between foraging, social interaction and feather care. The well-trained bird will be healthier and happier, along with giving its owner more enjoyment from the relationship.
Your bird should be allowed play time out of its cage on a playpen if possible. This should preferably involve access to a number of feeding stations and your bird should be taught to forage for its food. This will occupy its time and provide mental stimulation. We recommend a great DVD called Captive Foraging by Dr Scott Echols to help you work on this.
Regular rotation of a wide variety of toys, particularly when your bird is caged, is essential to prevent boredom. They need not be expensive, you can use wood blocks with holes drilled in them where treats are hidden, natural fiber rope tied in knots, leather rope with beads attached, telephone directories for tearing up etc. Even a nut in its shell can provide a mental challenge for your bird.
Socialization is equally important. This should not be centered on petting which facilitates pair bonding and subsequent undesirable behaviors (particularly crucial with cockatoos). Companion birds should be included in the family unit and trained to step up and step down and to stay on a perch. They can then be moved from room to room on a freestanding perch. Even watching TV together or taking a shower can then be a social event. This can be expanded into training your bird to do tricks or talk should you wish to expand your bird’s abilities.
We will be happy to help you with training your bird and enabling you to have a loving and loyal companion for the rest of you or your bird’s life. Our goal is that you will have a companion bird that will amaze you with its beauty, animation and intelligence and in return receive patience, understanding, trust, compassion and respect - qualities important for us all.
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When Dr. Ross Weinstein is unavailable to help your bird, we recommend the following doctors:
Marli Lintner, DVM
Avian Medical Center
15952 SE Quarry Rd
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
503-635-5672
503-635-2539 fax
Patricia Huff, DVM
Pet Samaritan Clinic
2519 E Burnside
Portland, OR 97214
503-233-5001
503-233-9523 fax
Deb Schaeffer, DVM
Gladstone Veterinary Clinic
18420 SE McLoughlin Blvd
Portland, OR 97267
503-653-6621
503-653-3459 fax
Call for doctor choice
Rock Creek Veterinary Hospital
1445 NW 185th Ave
Aloha, OR 97006
503-645-4458
503-690-1903 fax
Avian Health
Association of Avian Veterinarians
http://www.aav.org/
Dr. Margaret Wissman’s avian health search engine
http://www.exoticpetvet.net/avian/
Electronic Zoo- a great collection of avian information- http://netvet.wustl.edu/
Aviculture
American Federation of Aviculture
http://www.afabirds.org/
Avian Behavior Consultations
Julie Weiss Murad
Colorado phone number: 970.963.2060 www.thebirdbrain.com/html/behavioralconsultations.cfm
E-mail: jools@thebirdbrain.com
Visit either www.thegabrielfoundation.org or www.thebirdbrain.com to learn more about Julie and her 30-year experiences with psittacine (parrot-type) and related birds
Bird Clubs
Rose City Bird Club (they also do adoptions)
http://www.rosecityexoticbirdclub.com/
Bird Supplies and Toys
The Bird Brain
http://www.thebirdbrain.com/
Conservation
World Parrot Trust
http://www.worldparrottrust.org/
Parrots International
http://www.parrotsinternational.com/
Indonesian Parrot Project
http://www.indonesian-parrot-project.org/
Exotic Bird Rescue of Oregon
http://www.rescuebird.com/
Oregon Humane Society
http://www.oregonhumane.org/small/index.asp?offset=0#list
Parrot Welfare Organizations and Bird Adoption
The Gabriel Foundation - an excellent resource for education, welfare, conservation, adoption, rescue and rehabilitation information
http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/Home
Parrots for Dummies
Available at www.amazon.com
General Parrot Information
A link to a great links page that will connect you with more sites than you could possibly need.
http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/ResourceLinks /ResourceLinksList.aspx?list=General%20Info
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