disease test ?

[feathermum]

does anyone on here have their birds disease tested? for me it's a big deal & a must before I bring a parrot home rescued or bought. what I find really strange is that most ppl get offended over this, or find it absolutely un called for. I know that since i'v 1st brought my nanday home (1st fid) last fall that this would stick w/ me. other ideas have changed, like leaveing birds flighted..I now know that this is something I 100% agree w/. whereas up until a month ago I thought was dangorus : ( there may be other things i'll change my mind about over the yrs w/ all we learn, but right now 3 things I don't see myself changing 1,DIEASE TESTING 2,FLIGHTED 3,DIET... so where are u on this? if you'r a breeder / hand raiser do u test? when you get a new parrot do u make sure they have been disease tested?

[KimberlyAnn]

Yes! I think it's a good idea because you don't want to find out things are wrong when it's too late to do anything about them.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Yes all my babies/new birds came with paperwork from breeders for bloods/poop screen for PBFD/giardia/psitacossis/ etc (sometimes DNA if important) and then have feather samples, oral smears and poops at 30 day ownership at new bird check up. Then they have 6 months of age appointment which is poops and sometimes bloods if a concern is raised and 1 year appointment where bloods are taken for sure with a repeat of the 30 day tests. Then I have check ups with poop samples every year to 6 months from there. Bloods would only be taken if poops or otehr tests gave a cuase for concern.

Obviously if need be we go in between these times. Additionally we send routine poop samples to the vets for testing, this is part of our avian insurance that poops are sent off periodically for testing so the insurance remains valid and it screens for internal digestive problems and minor infections. Also they can keep an eye on how good the diet is for the bird.

I'm lucky that my vets have all labs and results on site

Bloods can be quite invasive but breeders I go to refuse to sell without testing because its in their interests for their own flock and the new owners to have healthy birds. Disease testing doesn't always require bloods though, a remarkable amount can be seen in poops, feather samples (you don't have to pluck feather out usually you just collect one that comes off when stroking, our AV pets the bird till a down or feather comes loose naturally, if not he just tells you to bring one in separately). my AV only does bloods at the 1 year appt for small birds and 1.5-2 years for larger birds and only if absolutely necessary if the results from other tests or physical exmination give cause for concern.

If you have multiple birds then disease testing is a must, there's lots of diseases birds can carry but not suffer physically from. However when in contact with another bird they infect them. Additionally, some diseases like pstacossis are actually tranmissable to you! So you don't want to endanger yourself.

I always implement quarantine for 30 days with new or sick birds. All have different antibodies

You may not agree or think I'm excessive but the way I look at it is i can't vaccinate my birds like a childso I have to protect them by knowing if they are sick to start with. If they are we can treat it there and then befrore it infects other birds, kills the existing bird or infects you! Also if a breeder sells you a sick bird you have a duty to tell them if they don't test because they maybe doing it deliberately or they may be unaware of a potential situation. The way i look at it disease testing is a necessary 'evil' to save your bird and many birds.

[feathermum]

If you have multiple birds then disease testing is a must, there's lots of diseases birds can carry but not suffer physically from. However when in contact with another bird they infect them. Additionally, some diseases like pstacossis are actually tranmissable to you! So you don't want to endanger yourself.

I always implement quarantine for 30 days with new or sick birds. All have different antibodies

You may not agree or think I'm excessive but the way I look at it is i can't vaccinate my birds like a childso I have to protect them by knowing if they are sick to start with. If they are we can treat it there and then befrore it infects other birds, kills the existing bird or infects you! Also if a breeder sells you a sick bird you have a duty to tell them if they don't test because they maybe doing it deliberately or they may be unaware of a potential situation. The way i look at it disease testing is a necessary 'evil' to save your bird and many birds.

I agree 100% !!! I will not bring home bird till work-up is done, including disease testing! glad to see i'm not the only one!! most ppl think i'm nuts....whatever @ least I know they are healthy, and if there is a problem, then i'll know I can't belive u have Avian insurance!! I wish we had that!!! is it available in the US??? anyone know??

[Pajarita]

I rescue so it's different for me. For one thing, there is no need to test for PDD or polyoma because all the birds I get are adults and, if they had been living by themselves (which is usually the case), there couldn't have been contagion. I don't test for chlamydiosis because if a bird once had it and got better, he will test positive for the rest of his life and most of my birds have been exposed to it anyway and, if the bird is newly sick with it, I would notice the symptoms during the quarantine because incubation is pretty quick. As to PBFD, the greatest majority of birds that get sick with it are under two years of age and I never get birds that young but if an older bird tested positive, it doesn't really mean it will develop the disease as older birds can fight it off, it would just need to be retested in another 8 weeks or so and certain species are more prone than others so it depends on species and age of the bird.

[Eric&Rebecca]

That's true about PBFD they either show it as chicks around 10-12 weeks in smaller parakeets I'm pretty sure its older for larger birds. However if you have multiple birds, an older bird with PBFD can still transmit to other healthy birds so some selective baseline testings are a good idea with rescues as Parajita says.

Luckily PBFD isn't so rife in the UK as Austrailia, in fact my avian vet said he's seen less than 10 cases while practicing in the UK which he has been doing to two decades. Due to the temperatures and seasons the virus is unable to survive or even manifest, though if the bird is being tested anyway there's no harm in checking with younger birds. With the vast majority of the cockatiels we've had we have been able to observe all the parent birds and see paperwork.

And yes I do have Avian Insurance, I do it through my AV who does all the birds and exotics with a specific avian and exotic pet insurance company. I think he picked this up from working at ZSL aviaries here in UK. It costs me about £10 per month which covers £8,000 worth of medical treatment, reduced rate appointments (as arranged with the surgery), mortality cover and necropsy cover. I have to pay a certain amount towards tests which brings costs up to £40 per appointment should they be required but I think that's extremely good, given how much my birds mean to me.

[Pajarita]

And how much it would cost if you didn't have it! I've paid thousands of dollars trying to save sick birds to no avail. I paid $1,800 for one single surgery on an Amazon's broken leg and the bird did not last two years after that... It sounds like a lot but the fracture was 20 years old, displaced, and there was lots of scar bone tissue that needed to be removed prior resetting it so a specialist had to perform it along with my own vet and then she had a steel rod put in as well as an external fixator (the metal contraption that is outside the leg but that has screws that go into the bone through the skin and flesh) and she needed weekly XRays to check on the progress because both the fixator and the rod had to be taken out at exactly the right time and then replaced with a cast (and the XRays and cast were extra).

[Eric&Rebecca]

Exactly Parajita! If I had to pay it for my birds I would anyway but the insurance makes sure i can always do that. It should be standard, if a bird can be a pet there has to be insurance available for owners. You do such a good job, rescuing those birds!

I'd love to do that in the future. We already looking at a bigger place with room for an outdoor aviary.