Bird Vet, Avian Vet or Small Animal Vet?
Bird Vets/Avian Vets Are Special
One of the most common things that we hear is that people struggle to find a vet for birds.
Dog and cat vets can be amazing but many of them are not confident when it comes to treating avian patients. There are a number of reasons why it can be hard to find a bird vet.
Birds hide illness. They are food on the food chain, so the drive to fake being healthy is an instinctual survival skill. This means that by the time a bird shows signs of illness, it is usually already a life threatening level of seriousness.
It is not unusual for an avian patient to be so critically ill that they require hospitalization.
Bird Vet Melbourne has a hospital setup specially designed for birds. We have multiple sizes of incubators that can cater for the larger chicken vet patients, to incubators for smaller birds such as canaries and finches. Most dog and cat clinics have nowhere adequate to put an avian patient.
A good avian vet is going to be seeing large numbers of sick or injured birds daily. Nothing beats experience. Many bird diseases are highly contagious, so it is helpful if your vet is aware of what is currently out there.
All vets are required to have some level of post graduate veterinary qualification. Avian vets take their studies to another level. There are multiple types of avian qualifications that are relevant. A bird vet may have completed an avian membership qualification, or they may even be a specialist. A good bird vet will also be attending conferences, attending avian vet meetups, participating in continued education and constantly networking. In Melbourne, there is a very large active avian community and all of our veterinary staff are a part of this.
Can a dog/cat vet treat a bird?
Well the answer is going to depend on the vet. Bird Vet Melbourne does routinely see small animal patients (dogs and cats). There are a couple of advantages to this. Firstly, our vets are part of a wider community of vets and are not just active in the avian community - so they're really going to be aware of advances in the overall science of veterinary medicine.
Our vets love animal dentistry work. We have clients that travel from interstate to see our vet dentists. Dentistry is something the clinic is well known for. This means that our clinic has a larger than normal collection of dental equipment. Coincidentally, this equipment is perfect for many avian surgeries, particularly for beak repair and beak reconstructions.
