Are you ready to shoulder such a vet bill?

[Michael]

Ok, so many of you know that recently I had an emergency with Truman requiring immediate vet care. While I admit that this time was entirely my fault, we must also realize that this could just as well have happened on its own. So the question is, are you prepared to shoulder a $500+ vet bill if an emergency were to arise with your parrot?

If you have multiple parrots, are you prepared to spend $250+ per parrot (or whatever a few days of vet care + meds would run in your neck of the woods) should your entire flock catch an illness (contaminated toy, teflon poisoning, bad food, whatever)? You do realize that if just one food you feed them contains something really bad by chance, odds are your entire flock can get sick at once. And as far as I know, vets don't do bulk discounts. This is a pretty scary though. I was completely unprepared for the vet bill for Truman but luckily I used my credit card on the spot and have enough of a "rainy day" savings that I was able to tap into. However, vet care is not cheap and the cost will run about the same whether you have a $20 budgie or a $2,000 macaw.

Have you had any serious parrot vet care before? What did it run you? Were you prepared for the bill? Let's have a discussion about the costs of parrot vet care and preparedness for this.

[sidech]

This is the same for any animal you have.

I've had vet bills go up to more than 500$ a few times, although I must admit (touch wood), not too often. But this is part of the game. I've got 2 dogs, 1 parrot and one big aquarium and before deciding to get any of them, I had to have the budget in case of emergencies. All of them, including my fish, have generated expenses from the vet or specialized pet store for health reasons.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, however valuable my animals are to me, there is a limit, unfortunately, to the amount I would spend for any of them, and to the suffering I would put them through. I would not, for example, spend 5 000$. I might decide to spend 1 000$, depending on the type of care needed, and the chance of recovery and the quality of life afterwards. But each case is unique, and everyone has their own financial limits.

[Rrrma]

It's amazing how much more expensive vets are than people doctors. I've never had insurance on myself, I deal strictly with cash and doctors. I've definitely dropped my jaw a few times when a checkup for them costs more than one for myself.

I do mostly holistic medicine for myself and I do it for my dogs as well, but my birds I can't do as much with. They are too fragile and too unstudied and I'm not willing to risk that. So I eat the bills. Luckily the local avian vet takes CareCredit and I think it is a really good backup to have.

That would be something for you americans to look into. http://www.carecredit.com/
(a lot of human doctors take it too)

[notscaredtodance]

I've always preached this, just because, I have rats, which are about the price of a parakeet. And people buy rats and rats are pretty susceptible to tumors, but can live a long healthy life if they're removed early and benign, which many are. But people don't think about vet bills when buying a cheap pet. With parrots I think people are a little more willing to spend the money, because its a big investment. Rats are too, if you take care of them properly. Too many people put rats in hamster cages. It's the equivalent of a senegal in a smaller, cheaper parakeet cage.

But yeah. I've got 4,000 dollars saved up for vet bills. But I agree about the limit. My limit is probably about 800, 100 dollars more than I spent on the bird. And if it would be an above 50% chance of the bird getting better.

[bmsweb]

One of our baby conure's crop wasn't emptying as quickly as I would have liked, so we took him to an Avian Vet, who ran tests on crop etc and prescribed antibiotics for the little fella. Interestingly the Vet commented on how its not often he's treated or handled a 3 week old bird, because most breeders would bother with the additional expense on such a young bird.

I guess its an individual's choice weather to spend the money on a Budgie, Macaw or a baby bird. For me personally I couldn't put a value on the little fellas life and for me the Vet bill was worth every cent

[ptuga72]

We keep $1,500 cash on hand for vet bills specifically, but have other savings that we would dip into if needed. I used to say that I would have a limit on what I would spend, but the truth is, I simply can't. On my kitty we have a limit, but that is because he is old and any procedure would just be putting off the inevitable.

Last October Jake got psittacosis and needed to be hospitalized for a week. That set us back $1,200 after vet bills, medicines, and follow up exams and tests. It was so worth it (even though I ended up getting it!).

Recently I posted about Scarlet's latest illness, that one cost us $600 after it was all said and done.

Luckily the rescue pays for any medical bills that the fosters incur. But since I like the little guys (and every rescue is hurting for money) should they become ill or injured I would pay for most, if not all of it.

[Kim S]

Depending on what animal you are talking about. My aviary birds get the basic care and medication, which I have ready at my house. If theres something seriously wrong which can't be fixed I am capable of humanly euthanising them myself. If there is something wrong that cán be fixed I am willing to spend some money.

My in-home pets are a different story. I have Kika, my senegal, Guus, my cockatiel and three dogs.
One of my dogs actually is very ill. He has a brain tumor and a heart disease which cant be cured. We are just treating the symptoms now to keep him happy and 'healthy' untill one of the disseases takes him. We have spent $650,- on a brainscan to determine what was wrong and if it could be treated. We spent $130,- on an echo to see what was wrong with his heart. We spend about $100, - each month on medication, for the past year now. Include the regular vetbill for the checkup (about $35 per visit, once every two months) that would add up to... A little over $2000,- for the past year.

I would be willing to pay that for every pet.
That said, I am unemployed at the moment, and have been for a couple of months. Things are starting to get tight here. The rainy days have turned into a hurricane.
Could you cut into the vetbudget?

[Natacha]

I have a substantial amount of money saved that if I had some kind of disaster affect all of my birds, I'd be able to afford veterinary care. I wouldn't have as many if it wasn't the case.

Also, I have an extraordinary vet who, on top of being very competent, normally gives me some type of discount and if I were to bring many birds together, I'm sure she would work something out, not that I would expect it, but so far she's always included something more in the price of something else. I am not relying on her doing this again when budgeting for vet care, but it's always nice when it happens.

The "biggest" vet related expense which was related to one of my birds was for Shade. As a baby, she had a broken leg which was healing improperly so she had a few visits to the vet. The exact cost? I couldn't say. As she was a graduation gift from my parents and ultimately my mom decided where we were going to get her, she also covered the vet costs for Shade and her brother Nemo at the time. While they were something of a "deal" (up front price wise), in the end both birds "cost" was much higher than normal. However, we felt good about helping two birds in need.

[HyperD]

Does no-one here go for the pet insurance option?

[Kim S]

Parrots can not be insured here. Just dogs and cats.
My dog actually is insured, but only up to a certain amount.