One Year Checkup

[Navre]

Just got back from the vet with Ocean, my GCC.

Everything was okay. The vet was happy with her diet and her solar schedule.

She weighed 66 grams today, 65 grams 6 months ago. She is tiny for a GCC. The vet said that sometimes the turquoise variation comes with a smaller size.

The vet did not want to draw blood. She said that if the bird is good upon clinical exam, she does not draw blood as she finds it very stressful on the birds.

[Wolf]

Well now, not much tops a good checkup. How does she celebrate?

[Navre]

SHe is currently eating a sunflower seed and watching the sunset.

[Pajarita]

The more 'complicated' the mutation, the more inbreeding it took, the weaker the bird will be and, often, that means size, too. But turquoise is a 'one step' mutation and they are usually found to be larger than any other so the small size in her case must be just inherited from her parents, just like there are short, average and tall people.

I am glad that the doctor was happy with her condition but I have to tell you that a check up without blood work doesn't really mean anything because unless the birds are terribly run-down, they always look good.

[Navre]

I know that they used to take blood from my grey at every visit.

There was bloodwork done by this same animal hospital before I bought the bird. The pet shop has them do all the birds when they come in. My sister used to work at this animal hospital so I know that they actually do bloodwork, but it's limited to testing for communicable diseases.

[Pajarita]

Well, maybe you can ask for a CBC and a chem panel next time you take him. I would and not only to ensure that there is nothing wrong with him but also because it's always best to have a baseline of values from when the bird is healthy -that way, in the future, if anything is different from what you got when he was healthy and young, you know you need to find out what is making the difference.