Avian Veterinary Services; Week 2

Back up to AVS for a second week seeing avian practice and another great week!
I'm so used to being rushed at the PDSA that this week has been completely different, as they're so specialist they have fewer clients but have really long consults and spend a lot of time with each case.
During the breaks Richard gave me a series of lectures and practicals which have been really useful.

We saw a young Gyr falcon last week who had changed vocalisations and generally 'off' - falconers spend a lot of time with their birds, especially young imprints like this, so notice clinical signs really early. She came back in this week for an endoscopy as she still wasn't quite right and it was like a military procedure.
Richard and Carli have so much experience that everything is ready and basically read each others minds! She was induced with inhalant anaesthesia, a doppler placed, positioned onto a plate and a series of x-rays taken.

After the x-rays they did an endoscopy which confirmed she was a female and also found some aspergillus fungi in her respiratory system. Luckily as it was found so early it can be quickly treated and got under control.

Later in the week I got to practice endoscopy on a few cadavers which was great to practice as it looks so much easier that it is, especially with different scope angles where you're looking up 15 degrees rather than straight forwards!



I think my favourite specimen in the building is this one, Dave the Buzzard...

...Richard uses him in nearly all his consults to explain cases to owners and it works really well to help them understand. I'm quite a visual learner as well and I love skeletons so all round win for me!

Avian Veterinary Services

Having always been interested in birds and wanting to specialise in avian medicine for a few years, I've been aware of Avian Veterinary Services for a few years. We follow each other on Twitter and (I now know) after a few outspoken tweets by me, they invited me to see practice with them.

Richard and Carli are based up in Cheshire and are an awesome bird vet team!

I booked myself into the local Travelodge and spent the week seeing practice with them, having a great time.

I know quite a lot about chickens and a fair bit about raptors but have learnt so much already, and started getting to grips with parrots and other birds!

As birds are generally pretty small and surgeries pretty intricate, Richard uses surgical loupes for magnification and microsurgery tools for precision surgery. I was given the honour of having a go (play!) with them as they cost a few thousand pounds!

First up I practiced writing as small as I could to get used to the focus and slight feelings of seasick-ness

Once I'd mastered writing I moved on to suturing witha high tech practice pad (examination glove) which was kinda tricky being so small so I'm quite happy with how I got on!

I think I'm going to have to get a cheap pair of loupes and some microsurgery instruments to practice suturing and doing surgery on grapes!

Consults are half an hour as exotics need quite a thorough history taking. We usually take the birds out the back to examine them as parrots especially can be quite bonded to their owners, and vice versa, so it's best for everyone that they're out of sight and if examined in theatre we have everything to hand should it be needed.

I never really appreciated behavioural problems in parrots and the problems imprinting them can cause so have learn loads about that this week and seen the real impacts it can cause!

Surprise Chocolate

We have a breeding group of Chocolate Frizzle Pekins in an Eglu and the two hens went broody a few weeks ago.

I'm at uni so my parents just left them to it "as they weren't laying" and now we have... 

Surprise chocolates! They hatched a week ago and the two males are still in with them (which I would never normally do), they've been getting on fine so we're leaving them be...
"Son that'd adult food, yours is in the shallow dish"

Two New Chickens

Over the last couple years I've gotten into taxidermy ...I guess as a vet student it comes with the territory! I prefer skulls and skeletons to full mounts as the anatomical differences are really interesting.

Anyway, a friend messaged me as Uni were throwing out four taxidermy chickens. I went down to have a look with a couple friends and brought two back to dorms!

BBC Countryfile Live

I've been at Blenheim Palace for BBC Countryfile Live this week, giving talks for #TeamPoultry in the Adam's Farm area.

The show was huge and nothing like I've been to before. Loads of things to see and do, activities for the children and loads of great trade stands.

The talks went down really well and we had thousands of people visit our stand.

As always we had day old chicks, pure and rare breed poultry, ex commercial hens and new for this year, Call Ducks and Sebastopol geese.

The chicks were very popular with the public, everyone wanted to hold them so we had to restrict handling times to give them a rest!

We met Adam Henson

and Ellie Harrison

I even did an interview for That's Oxfordshire which went out on TV and is on their YouTube channel

Poultry Dispatch, Pluck & Gut Course

I headed back to Wales this weekend to run another Poultry Dispatch, Pluck & Gut course. I started doing them about 5 years ago now after friends asked me to show them how to prepare excess cockerels for the table and it's grown from there.

We drove down on Sunday and stayed in an awesome little cottage - the previous tenant was a vet and the landlords dad was a vet, which was a nice little coincidence.

The course was held at Denmark Farm Conservation Centre just outside Lampeter which was a great venue.

I had eleven attendees, so one of the biggest courses yet, who all dispatched two chickens, learnt how to dry and wet pluck, skin and joint a bird and then how to gut them. 

They take the second bird home un-eviscerated to hang and practice the gutting process again.

Chocolate Pekin Bantam chicks

The Chocolate Pekin Bantam chicks are about 8 weeks old now and growing quickly!

Here's one of the pullets 

The award for the scruffiest chick goes to...

They're off heat now living in the utility room and I'm going to keep them in for about another month. 

Last year I put some Pekin chicks out at about this age and they really didn't thrive so hopefully another few weeks inside will do them a world of good - also means they'll get used to people as we're in and out of there all the time.

Buff Orpington enjoying the sunshine

Pekin Bantam Chicks

A family who hired a Brinsea Mini Eco from me have just hatched some chicks and they seem delighted.

They have three children under the age of 6 and hatched three chicks, so one each!

The eggs are from a local breeder, 5 minutes down the road, who said they should be Chocolate Mottled or Chocolate so will be interesting to see how they develop.

They'll be coming to me when they're bigger in a few weeks so hopefully will get one or two girls who can join our flock.

BBC Gardeners' World Live 2015

I'm back at BBC Gardeners' World Live and BBC Good Food Show at the NEC this year with PoultryTalk.com and it's been a great week. 

I've been attending the show for the last 5 years and still find new and exciting things to see each year; this year was definitely the year of Salted Caramel and I paid several visits to The Brownie Bar and the Little Round Cake Company...

We're basically there to promote back garden poultry keeping, giving advice and answering any questions people may have.

I'm obviously a little biased but really believe chickens are great garden pets and can help gardens become more productive and people become more sustainable; not only with the fresh eggs daily but also manure as fertiliser, weed and pest control.

There have been a few upgrades to the stand this year with a 50" Plasma screen and a wireless PA system for giving talks and presentations.

We held 6 talks on the stand each day on "Set-up & caring for chickens" and "Choosing your chickens"

The talks were really well attended and we had lots of people asking questions after each talk, coming to meet Tallulah and to buy our new Poultry Handbook.

I also did a few talks in the VIP Lounge which had a more relaxed environment where people were I was able to walk around the room letting people hold the chickens, advise on where they can get chickens and answer specific questions.

Tallulah the Frizzle Poland was the star of the show as always and she was great with the visitors, letting them stroke her and posing for photos.

She even had a visit from celebrity Skinny Jean Gardener Dale from CBBC's Blue Peter!

It was really nice to catch up and spend a week with friends Jamie, Wendy, Paco and Jenna.

Anatomy of Domestic Birds

In Anatomy this week we learnt about the anatomy of domestic birds; pigeons, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese.

It was interesting seeing the differences and I knew most of the parts and organs in English but obviously not Latin. 

I guess it helps because I've prepared a lot of dinner chickens and we prepare pigeons for Falconry every day.

We then had chickens to dissect, my group know I like (am obsessed with) chickens so I did most of the dissection...

Hygiene & Welfare Trip; Enriched Cage Laying Hens

I have an exemption from Hygiene & Welfare as I covered the content in my previous degree and have worked on lots of farms but I tagged along to their trip today, to see chickens!

It was about an hours drive on a coach outside of Kosice and I was pleasantly surprised at how clean and modern the facilities were and at how healthy the chickens were.

They buy in hybrid chicks from a hatchery at day old which are put in the first shed to grow on until they reach POL (point of lay) at around 16 weeks old. Hybrid chickens are sex-linked which means the males and females hatch out a different colour so at a few hours old they are sexed, with females being kept and sold into the laying industry and males euthanised, usually by gas so they can be sold for reptile or falconry food or macerated in a high speed fan.

Laying hens are usually vaccinated against Newcastles Disease, Salmonella, Infectious Bronchitis (IB), Avian Rhinotracheitis (ART), Mycoplasma and Mareks Disease - these are done by injecting, adding to the water and spraying in a mist above the chicks.
The grower shed was really modern with enriched cages three stories high and around a dozen growers per cage. All feeding, watering and cleaning was mechanised with light and ventilation in the shed tightly controlled.

We weren't meant to but I took a couple growers out the cages to have a look at them and they looked really healthy, bright eyes with no discharge, clean feathers and really clean feet!

I noticed all the layers in the other sheds were Goldlines but in the grower sheds they had one whole row of caged with Light Sussex, Marans and White Stars and there were people coming with crates to buy those so they must rear hybrids to sell on to the public. There were also some fully grown Ross Cobb broilers which I asked if they were for meat but they couldn't really understand what I was asking.

Once the chicks reach POL they are then moved into one of the other sheds into enriched cages to start laying. These sheds were much brighter and had feed running down the middle of the cages rather than along the front, as there was a conveyor belt along the front for egg collection.
Interestingly there was a single strand of electric wire just above the gap the eggs roll under to stop the layers from egg pecking, something I'd not seen before.
The shed was really well ventilated, light and the girls looked pretty bright and well feathered.

I was less impressed with the next shed we went into which was much bigger and had older styles of cages, 7 stories high.

That sounds really judgemental and snobby which isn't what I mean but the birds were more cramped in these cages, they were all very bald and we noticed a few dead birds in the cages. I'm not sure how well the birds in the top row were monitored as it would be really impractical to check them all the way up there. There were loads of free range girls on the floor all the way along each row!

The eggs follow the conveyor belt all the way along from each shed, along belts and down into the packing station:

Here any obviously broken, cracked or misshaped eggs were removed by hand before going through the Moba Egg Grading Machine you can see below.

The machine candled the eggs with light to look for imperfections in the shell and removed these eggs.

Next up the eggs were stamped with the production system (0=Organic, 1=Free Range, 2=Barn, 3=Caged) and the producers code.

Then they were sorted by size and packed into trays of 30 and boxes of 6 or 12 for sending out to retail!

Overall I was impressed with how clean and modern it all was and I had expected much worse being out here in Eastern Europe but I guess after the EU legislation changed banning battery caged on 1st January 2012 they would have had to update all their cages to enriched anyway.

Bit of a contrast to Birchgrove, the Free Range egg farm we visited in Wales for my last degree.

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