AVICULTURE PRACTICE

By David Hannon, DVM

Dear Fellow Bird Lover,

Do you enjoy breeding birds? Are your pairs producing regularly? Are you having any problems with egg and hatchling deaths? Are the veterinary fees for treating individual birds cutting into your aviary profits? Have you had any major disease outbreaks? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it may be time to step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

When running an aviary, be it a few pairs of parrots in a back bedroom or a thousand birds in a commercial setting, it can be easy to get caught up in the details and miss the big picture. If you are using a veterinarian just to treat the sick birds, but have never had anyone look into why the birds are becoming ill in the first place, it might be time to have a physical examination performed on your aviary. Many aviary management decisions are based on intuition, “gut feelings”, testimonials and other anecdotal information, but not on the tried and true science of aviculture.

Vet Pets Animal Hospital and Dr. David Hannon offer a more intensive look at the inner workings of your aviary, not just the sick birds. Our aviculture practice looks at the entire flock as the patient. Just like a veterinarian will perform a physical examination and take diagnostic samples of a sick bird, we will also do this for the flock as a whole. In assessing the health of your aviary, we will look at the following aspects of your aviary:

• Mission Statement – What are you hoping to accomplish? What are your goals?
• Aviary Map – What is the layout of the aviary? Is this the best design for your needs?
• Enclosure Design – Are your cages and nest boxes suitable for the species that you have in them?
• Traffic Flow Map – How do the habits of the bird caretakers affect the health of the flock?
• Financial Records – Do you breed birds for fun or profit or both? Do you have a budget?
• Production Records – How well are your birds producing? What is your hatch rate? What percentage of your chicks are weaning?
• Medical Records – What disease processes have you had to deal with? In what areas have birds been affected and why?
• Nutritional Review – What are you feeding to your breeders? What are you handfeeding? Are you handfeeding and weaning birds properly?

So why Vet Pets? Our avian veterinarian, Dr. David Hannon, is a 1993 graduate of Auburn University, and a member of the Association of Avian Veterinarians (AAV) since 1990. He has been practicing avian medicine in the Memphis, TN area since 1993, and is the primary veterinarian for the Exotic Animal Rescue League, the Mid-South Raptor Center, the Mobile Ark and Ark R.A.I.N. Foundation, and Lichterman Nature Center. He is a regular participant at AAV annual conferences and aviculture medicine seminars, and he is currently in the process of obtaining certification in avian specialty practice by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP-Avian).

Our fees for this service include a one-way mileage fee of $3.82* per mile and an hourly rate of $160* per hour billed in 15 minute blocks. All procedures performed on site are included in the hourly rate.** Laboratory tests performed at Vet Pets or an outside lab are billed out separately. Depending on the size of the aviary, visits may take one to four hours. After all of the data has been collected and interpreted, the aviculturist will receive a typed and bound report detailing our findings and listing all of our recommendations. After the initial visit, any additional examinations, diagnostics or procedures performed on any of your birds at Vet Pets Animal Hospital are discounted 15% below our regular fees for the next 12 months.

Just like every pet should have an annual examination to make sure that it stays healthy, so should every aviary. By identifying and correcting the problems in your aviary, you can increase production and profits, decrease illness and headaches, and hopefully have more fun doing what you love to do. Call Vet Pets to set up your aviary visit today, and let us help to get you on the road to avicultural successful.