Your ill bird may need to stay
in hospital for a day or more

By the time I see most birds, they are often already very seriously ill. This is because birds hide the fact that they are ill (a survival trait that they have retained from the wild), rather than any neglect by the owner.. For most people it is easy to miss the first early signs of illness and it is only when the bird finally shows the more obvious signs of sickness, that the seriousness of the situation is realised. As well, because of their very high metabolic rate, birds fall ill very quickly, so one day is a very long time in the health of birds. Consequently, many birds that come to us require hospitalisation.

Emergency treatment in hospital is necessary when your bird is not eating, very unwell, vomiting or cold.

In hospital your bird will be placed in a quiet, special heated hospital cage, force fed using a crop needle with a high-energy formula and injected with medicines. Your bird will be discharged as soon as it is out of danger and eating by itself, because many bird fret away from home. Those patients who fret too badly in hospital may be discharged before they start to eat and be treated at home or as outpatients.

My first priority is to feed your ill bird using a special crop needle, which delivers a high-energy heated food directly to the crop. The body temperature and blood glucose levels of your bird will rise almost immediately following this process and give your bird a good start to recovery. There is a poorer outlook for those birds which do not respond within 30 minutes to this initial emergency procedure, and the outlook is quite good for those birds responding to this first step. The heat of the cage and from the crop food stabilizes the ill bird whilst the cause of the illness is identified. Medicines are selected according to the results of the dropping tests (and confirmed by the culture test 24 hours later) and given by injection or via the crop needle. Often this initial emergency procedure saves the life of the bird. Usually within 24 hours I will know what the problem is and I may adjust the treatment procedures accordingly. Rarely, it may take 48 hours before all the test are finalised.

I will ask you to visit your bird each day if possible. It is amazing how important this visit is to the psychological well being of your pet bird, which in turn helps accelerate the recovery. Birds recover more quickly than other animals because of their high metabolic rate, but like other seriously ill animals can succumb to irreversible kidney damage. We will only know the extent of any permanent damage once the bird patient is eating and drinking by itself. You will need to monitor the eating and drinking of your bird at home and report to me if there is a change when your bird goes home. It usually takes at least a week and up to 3 weeks for your bird to get back to normal after a serious illness. Serious kidney damage may cause long term health problems.

Copyright © 2002 Rob Marshall, All Rights Reserved.