|
When Professional Aid For Your Bird Is A Must - Part 6 - Your Basic Bird First Aid Kit |
|
|
|
There are some problems you just can’t treat well at home as a novice bird owner. If you have a great deal of experience, you can read about more detailed medical care and possibly solve problems such as egg binding yourself. But no one who has not had extensive prior experience and seen these types of procedures successfully completed should try them at home. You will more likely do more harm than good, possibly causing your bird’s unnecessary death.
Egg Binding
When a bird is trying to lay an egg, sometimes the egg will not pass properly and assistance is needed. You will readily know there is a problem, as the bird’s “bottom” will be distended and probably prolapsed skin will be showing through the vent – which is the same as the birth canal in women. In birds, this is also the same canal used for disposal of feces and urine. Some success can be obtained by placing the bird in a steamy room, but I would never ever do that unless I had assisted in the procedure before.
Place the bird in a small travel cage and go to the vet. They can easily remove the egg, or if necessary, break the egg and remove the pieces. This isn’t an area to play around with, you can cause serious infection if you try to treat the bird and the egg breaks! Remember, birds use the same canal for defecation as for passing eggs, so there are germs there at all times and eggshells can cause tear injuries allowing these germs to get into the bird’s body.
Severe Puncture Wounds or Cuts, Serious Animal Attacks
Before leaving for the vet, you can apply some styptic and certainly wrap the bird in a warm soft towel or other clean cloth, but serious wounds of any kind must be addressed by the professional! And it must be done immediately!
Air Sac Puncture
If suddenly your bird has a pouch of soft feeling swelling under its neck or on its side, the bird has probably punctured an air sac. This is a job for the pro. Similar to a collapsed lung in a human, the vet will use a hypodermic needle to drain the air, and will treat the bird so it will return to health.
Vomiting, Failure to Eat, Appearance of General Illness, Diarrhea
This is another area that the novice just shouldn’t tackle themselves. If diarrhea appears, you should remove all fresh or watery foods and wait 6 -12 hours to see if the problem is solved. Then introduce fresh foods slowly. But if the diarrhea continues, a professional needs to perform tests and place the bird on the proper medications.
Vomiting can indicate poisoning. If you know the poison ingested, take it with you to the vet’s office. But a novice is just not qualified to treat poisoning situations.
Failure to eat, puffy squatted perching, general appearance of illness can be caused by many things, and “guess work” is not the way to treat the problem. Proper medication is the only answer and you should contact the vet and have him or her see the sick bird. They will probably do culture tests to get the medication required right and may need to keep the bird for a few days.
|
|
Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 December 2006 )
|
