My Health Protocol

Background
I am a proponent of avian veterinarians. If a bird is sick, the avian veterinarian is its best chance for survival.

I am also a realist. Not everyone has access to an avian vet. If an avian vet is not available, the well-intentioned advice "Take the bird to a vet" is not going to help the bird at all. Not all avian vets have practical experience with finches. Those who keep finches frequently keep a lot of finches, and they tend to do so in communities, where disease can spread easily. Finches can be carriers of a variety of problems, spreading it to other birds without showing symptoms themselves. There is a limit to how much health care a finch fancier can afford to offer, and sometimes we need to prioritize our veterinary care for those cases in which it can do the most good.

When I first started with finches, It didn't take very long for the first illness to show up in my aviary. I knew right then that before I could take the hobby any further, I needed to find a responsible way to deal with this problem. I needed to set up a first line of defense for catching and dealing with illness on the front lines before the emergency vet visit.

This was more difficult than I expected. Most first lines of defense include the hospital cage, a source of heat, a source of humidity, and an electrolyte and perhaps vitamin supplement. Unfortunately, this tactic will never cure a sick bird. If the bird's problem is purely stress related, it may be all the bird needs. But if the problem is an illness, the best it can do is buy you a little extra time - hopefully enough time to get the bird to a vet and start him on the appropriate treatment.

But even if you get the bird to the vet before it dies, sometimes this is not enough. If the bird is showing significant symptoms, it may be too late to do anything about it. While you may be able to target the organism causing the problem, the organism may have done too much damage for the bird to recover. Or, the organism may have such a hold over the bird's system, that traditional medications cannot eradicate it. While I couldn't afford to bring in birds to the vet only to have them die, nor could I afford to bring in every healthy bird bird that ever had a bad day and looked a little questionable.

Clearly, I needed a means of identifying illness before the situation became critical. Unfortunately, birds are very good at covering up their symptoms when they are ill. This works to their advantage in the wild, when a sick-looking bird is an easy target for predators. In captivity, it works against them, preventing their owners from recognizing the problem until the bird is so sick it can no longer hide the problem.

I wanted to do more than just identify illness early. I wanted to also be able to identify which illness was likely the cause of the problem. But I found that this was next to impossible. While symptoms are sometimes respiratory in nature or digestive in nature or perhaps external in nature, nailing down the exact cause of a problem was very difficult. For example, clicking is frequently attributable to air sac mites. However, clicking is in fact symptomatic of many respiratory or sinus problems - think about it in the same way as coughing in humans can represent different illnesses. Fluffed bird syndrome can be attributable to a wide variety of problems, including stress and old age. Analyzing the color and texture of droppings is also very difficult when you keep a variety of types of finches of both genders and offer a varied diet.

It turned out that learning to use a microscope was the step I needed to take. This did not help me solve every problem, but it helped me with some of the more common (and treatable) problems: Candida, Avian Gastric Yeast (megabacteria), coccidia, worms, and protozoa. (See the Procedure: Preparing a Fecal Smear). It helped me find these problems in newly acquired birds before they were introduced to my flock and it helped me find these problems before symptoms occurred when they were still treatable. Even better, because I could positively identify the problem, I could sometimes also treat them myself.

So this became a bit of a dilemma for me. Do I go down the road of treating myself or do I continue to use the veterinarian. Treating yourself can be a dangerous thing. Some of these problems are secondary to other problems (Candida is frequently a problem that surfaces secondary to something else). If you don't treat the primary problem, the secondary problem will likely return or the bird may die from the original illness. If I am mistaken in my diagnosis, I may treat for the wrong thing. Also, over the counter medication may not be as good as what my vet can prescribe. However, vet visits are expensive and also are quite a trip and inconvenience. I would be crazy to constantly see the vet for simple problems I can take care of myself.

The Protocol
So, I developed the following protocol: If I find a problem in a visibly healthy bird and there is a commonly used reliable treatment available, I will treat myself as a first line of defense. If treatment does not help, I seek the assistance of the vet. In an ill bird, a vet visit is in order. If a bird is showing symptoms, there is little time to waste and I don't want to take the time to tinker with treating myself - especially since what I find under the scope may not be the cause of the illness. However, if the vet is booked or if other commitments keep me from getting to the vet immediately, I may chose to begin a treatment on my own while I am waiting to get to the vet.

If a bird seems to have a recurring problem, a vet visit may be in order to try to figure out why the bird keeps getting sick. Also, if there is a string of unexplained deaths in the aviary, a vet visit is in order for any bird that doesn't look quite right. In this case, it is essential that the cause of the problem be identified.

Necropsies are a difficult call. If there is an unexplained death in the aviary, finding out what caused it might save other birds. However, necropsies are expensive and are frequently inconclusive. In fact, so far, every necropsy I have had done has come back inconclusive. Thus, I no longer necropsy a bird that has died from unknown causes unless I know other birds are infected or there have been other recent unexplained deaths that have occurred under similar circumstances.

Conclusion
So, this is the protocol I am currently following. It is not necessarily the protocol I would recommend for someone else, just the one that seems to be working for me at the moment - providing the correct balance of home care and veterinary assistance. I describe it here not to encourage anyone to change their practices, but only to explain how I decide what course of action to take. Of course, every situation is different and I am flexible enough to deviate from the program when I think that is in the bird's best interest.