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!

BSAVA Manual of Avian Practice A Foundation Manual

I’m clucking eggcited to have finally got my hands on the new BSAVA Manual of Avian Practice

🐔🐧🦆🦅🦉🐓🦃

I've been waiting a while for this book which was written by John Chitty who came over to speak at our Exotics and Wildlife Weekend last year and finally got my hands on a copy at BSAVA Congress.

Pictured with my Burchell's Zebra skull 'cos why not aha

Eagle Hunting in Brno

Last year at Diakovce we met a group of Dutch falconers who we got on really well with and stayed in touch. They invited me and Leah to stay on after Opočno to join them for three days at a private hunt in Brno with their four Golden Eagles and a female Goshawk.

There was a bit of a hiccup leaving Opocno as the girls locked the key in their room and we had to leave at 5am for them to catch a train back to Kosice so I drove them the three hours to Brno while Leah stayed behind to get their luggage out of the room. We got everything sorted, found our hotel and perched the birds out in the gardens.

We were hunting on land around Brno airport and I've never seen so many hare in my life, the game was fantastic. Leah was flying a male Golden Eagle given to her by Bart, one of the Dutch guys.

They had a lot of slips on game as she got to grips with flying him and that evening they did some lure work by dragging a deer skin behind the truck - amazing to see!

On the second day together she caught a hare with him and once he was blooded (caught something) she was able to give him a name; Maximus.

Wes has been trying to catch Hare with his female Goshawk Elsa for two years but not had the opportunity. As there were so many hare in Brno and having flown hard for the past few weeks Elsa was at the perfect weight and fitness and had an amazing flight.

It's not a typical Gos flight so she obviously learnt how to catch it and it all paid off - Wes was delighted!

I really had the best time getting to know the guys and spending eight days with them I learnt so much about eagle falconry. The falconers so in touch with nature, know so much about the land and respect the quarry we're looking for. We saw loads of Roe Bucks (males) but didn't fly on those as they're out of season.

I was happy as they know I collect animal skulls so we found a complete Roe Deer female so I took her skull and cervical vertebrae. We also found a dead Buzzard underneath some electricity pylons which I've put in the freezer to process at a later date.

Four years ago I'd never seen an Eagle up close outside a zoo and now I've just spent eight days hunting with some of the finest eagle falconers in the world, helping make and fit equipment and handling the birds on a daily basis. I know it's cliché but I wouldn't change my life for the world.

50th Opočno Falconry Meet

This week I travelled to Opočno in the Czech Republic with four friends for the 50th International Falconry Meet. We drove the seven hours from Košice on Wednesday afternoon, ready for registration and the first day of hunting on the Thursday.

The opening ceremony was held in the castle and amazing to see how many falconers and birds there were in attendance with 67 Golden Eagles and a whole lot more Falcons and Hawks on top of that.

It was great to catch up with friends we've made at previous falconry meets and to make new contacts.

We spent two days with the Golden Eagles and one day out with the hawks; Goshawks and Harris' Hawks.

Bart, a Dutch falconers and friend of ours, brought his new male eagle for the meet and on their first day out hunting together they caught a Roe Deer.

It was an awesome flight as the eagle locked onto the backend of the doe and she ran around a tree trying to get him off. He had several flights leading up to it but to hold on gives them confidence which is great for training young birds.

At the end of each day we had a ceremony to pay tribute to the game, a tradition which is still carried out with horns playing, a small fire and pine branches put into the mouths of the game.

TEZWIC - Transylvanian Exotics, Zoo and Wildlife International Congress

Last week myself and four friends drove eight hours to Cluj Napoca in Romania for the first TEZWIC Congress.

The drive wasn't too bad as we stopped a few times en route, the only thing being we were in a car nearly as old as me which didn't have air con and Europe is experiencing a heat wave at the minute so it was windows down the whole way!

Following on from BSAVA and the Exotics Weekend I attended last month, I've realised what a great opportunity conferences like this are as I've learnt things we'll put into practice but also made contacts with people from all over the world.

There were people attending and speaking from Romania, Slovakia, France, Cambodia, South Africa and the Cayman Islands!

Norin Chai is a vet from Cambodia and now deputy director at Zoo Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He spoke to us about wildlife and zoo medicine, anaesthesia and analgesia but the most interesting of his lectures for me was the Endoscopy approach. It's amazing the things that can be done with an endoscope, from removing foreign bodies, to neutering by cutting the fallopian tubes in a baboon and surgically castrating a bullfrog!

I've always been interested in Endoscopy in practice but it's something I'd like to look at more, maybe as a thesis project.

Minh Huynh, another French vet, gave lectures on emergency care in raptors and avian diagnostic imaging which he explained really simple procedures that you can gain a lot from, but that I've never seen in practice so will definitely be trying those in the future.

He previously worked at Great Western Exotics and now in France and said now they only use CT or MRI in birds, they haven't done x-rays since 2008 and 2014 in the clinics!

Another thing I've been hearing a lot about recently is Capnography, not something I've seen used in clinics myself but that I'm really interested to learn more about.
The Exotics clinic at uni have just ordered a Capnograph so it will be nice to get used to using one and learning how to foresee potentially fatal anaesthetic complications before they would be noticed using other methods of monitoring.

Cluj Napoca was a really nice city and surprisingly different to Kosice. It was a much bigger city which seemed to have a younger population and more people who spoke English, though that could have been because we spent a lot of time around the university.
The restaurants we ate at were nice too, lots of independent restaurants rather than chains, with amazing food!

Overall we had an awesome time and we were made to feel really welcome by Gratzia and everyone at Team TEZWIC.

The quality of the lectures and the people giving them were great, everyone's English was amazing, particularly as I think myself and Sarah we're the only native speakers there. We'll definitely be back, hopefully with even more students from Kosice next year!

Waking up to a text...

"Do you want to come and spay a quail and amputate a Harris' Hawks wing?"
...and of course, I did!

One of the vets in the Exotics clinic and a friend were doing a salpingectomy or hysterectomy on a quail; something they'd not done before so I just went down to help out monitoring anaesthesia and flicking through the surgery textbook.
Initially we started with a left ventral incision but found it hard to identify the ovaries so then we went midline, which gave much better visualisation and the procedure went smoothly. Ideally the textbook says it would be done endoscopically using surgical clips but I think it's better to walk before you can run!

The great thing about the Exotics clinic is that you don't know what's going to come in next so while we were there a Rosella (small parrot) came in with a leg ring which was far too tight and needed removing as it had caused the foot below the ring to swell up. He was more difficult to anaesthatise than the quail as they can bite so we caught him in a towel and gave Isoflo with a mask. The ring came off with a dremel and needed bandaging to reduce the haematoma and stop him biting at the wound. As he was under we also coped (filed down) his beak and nails.

Finally we amputated the Harris' Hawks wing. He was bred by a friend of ours and sold to a falconer for hunting but had an accident whilst out in the field and was electrocuted. The whole of the carpometacarpus and second digit were necrotic and had to be removed back to the bone and sutured up. He recovered quickly so will be fed up in the clinic and eventually come to us in Falconry Club as he can no longer be flown to hunt.

Exotics and Wildlife Weekend

Another UVM Kosice conference weekend, this time the topic was Exotics and Wildlife with BSAVA President John Chitty and wildlife vet from the Netherlands, Sophie Bosch.

We covered all sorts of topics from initial consultation, stabilising, husbandry, surgery and how to get into wildlife vet work. John also did a session on PDP which is the Professional Development Phase new grad vets must complete and usually takes around 18 months after graduating.

The weekend finished with the Avian afternoon (save the best til last) which was really interesting. I learnt lots at BSAVA Congress and even more this weekend, particularly about parrots which I don't have much experience with.

Listening to John it became clear that the best way into exotics is to get into birds first, reptiles later as birds tend to be emergency cases which really prepares you, then these skills can be transferred to reptiles which you can generally take more time working with.
A true bird emergency is critical to be dealt with in 20 minutes whereas something like a tortoise can be stabilised and operated after a few days or even weeks. That's great for me as I already have a keen interest in birds and could possibly transfer these skills into reptiles.

He also taught us to question 'standard protocols' such as triple anaesthesia being used in every rabbit surgery; we don't treat all cats the same so why exotics? I'll definitely be paying more attention to the drugs used in practice this summer as previously I've just accepted the standard 'rabbit anaesthesia' protocol stated on the wall and not given it too much thought.

John and the BSAVA very kindly donated two BSAVA Manuals which he is Editor of to our Falconry and Raptor Rehabilitation Club; the Manual of Raptors, Pigeons and Passerine Bird and the Manual of Psittacine Birds.

Thanks again to Laura and Chris for organising the weekend and to Sophie and John for coming to speak to us.

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

Eastern Imperial Eagle in Exotics Clinic

I was in the Exotics Clinic this week when a professor asked me to help him take something upstairs. I followed him and soon realised it was a bird, an Eastern Imperial Eagle which had been brought in by a member of the public.

Unfortunately the bird was completely blind in one eye and had been hit by a car while it was feeding at the roadside, resulting in a compound fracture of the tibiotarsus. The wound was very dirty with dead tissue so the bird was given inhalation anaesthesia while we cleaned the leg and placed a thermoplastic cast and bandaged him up.

The Eastern Imperial Eagle is a breed threatened with extension in Europe so as he is blind and no injured it is hoped that he will recover and be placed in a captive breeding programme to help the future population.

Diseases of Reptiles practical

We had another Diseases of Reptile practical this afternoon where we learnt all about husbandry with common problems and how to prevent or treat them.

After that we were able to handle a variety of reptiles and then take blood samples from each.

I was able to take blood from the front cervical sinus of a turtle, a large boa and a Savannah Monitor