Avian & Exotic

A way to make sure your stethoscope stays out of the way during anesthetic monitoring.

These photos show how a team of 10 veterinarians successfully completed an experimental skull surgery on a green sea turtle.

What's behind the tearing and irritation in this rat's eye?

Dr. Juliet Gionfriddo helps find the cause of Lucky Duck's eye matter.

Respiratory disease in small exotic mammals is caused by a variety of etiologies but infectious causes predominate. Both upper and lower airway disease is seen and in rabbits and rodents, animals that are obligate nasal-breathers, upper respiratory disease can be as problematic as lower airway disease.

Emergency critical care and subsequent nursing care can mean the difference between life and death for a beloved pet. Critical care is an integral part of emergency management of disease in zoological species. A high mortality rate is inherent in exotic animal emergency medicine.

More and more people in todays society are choosing to own exotic pets in addition to or in lieu of the traditional dogs and cats commonly seen in private veterinary practice. Their small size and housing, ease of care, and human-animal bond potential make them the ideal pets.

Psittacine breeding has developed to fill the large demand for pet parrots created by the ban on importation. Many breeding pairs of birds are maintained in aviaries specifically to produce chicks for sale as pets.

Rabbits and rodents belong to the orders Lagomorpha and Rodentia respectively. Rodents are further divided into the suborders Myomorpha (rats, mice, gerbils, and hamsters), Caviomorpha (guinea pigs and chinchillas), and Sciuromopha (squirrels, chipmunks, and prairie dogs).

Soft tissue surgery is commonly performed on small exotic mammals for preventative health, control of reproduction, and to manage conditions warranting surgical intervention. The principles of surgery for dogs and cats also apply to cases involving exotic pets.

Providing veterinary care to exotic pets is challenging and rewarding, offering the veterinary technician the chance to work with a wide variety of species. There is an inherent challenge for those working with these pets given the large variety of species presented for care.

There are thousands of reptile species worldwide and more reptile species are kept as pets than any other taxa. For as many types of reptiles that are kept, there are as many natural history strategies that these species demonstrate in their wild habitat.

For a veterinary technician overseeing an avian or exotic animal patient, diagnostic testing is an essential tool in formulating a definitive diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan. Diagnostic testing is simply not a luxury for veterinary teaching hospitals, but a necessity for every clinical practice that sees these patients.

Urinary diseases are frequently encountered in exotic animal pets and an understanding of the renal physiology and pathology of these diseases is important for effective treatment.

One of the most common avian presentations at our veterinary hospital is the predator attack. These cases often present with severe lacerations, limb amputations and crushing injuries.

When developing a fluid therapy protocol it is incumbent upon the veterinarian to understand what the best products to use are and why in order to achieve the best physiologic response. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of scientifically based information regarding the underlying assessment parameters for fluid therapy protocol in individual avian species.

The first condition a veterinarian must consider when a case presents for abnormal feather loss is whether the feather loss is normal.

Treating dermal injuries, fracture stabilization, stabilization of fracture sites after internal orthopedic repair, joint injuries and prevention of self trauma are common reasons bandages are used on avian patients.

It is a clinical challenge when veterinarians have to administer therapeutic procedures to pet avian patients. The thoughtful use of therapeutic procedures on a debilitated patient is often correlated to the success or failure of treating a patient.

There are many therapeutic options open to veterinarians when treating patients. Unfortunately, as case numbers increase treatment options are narrowed due to different reasons.

Decontamination of patients with ingested toxins is achieved by emesis induction or gastric lavage, followed by administration of charcoal (adsorbs toxins enabling their excretion from the GI tract). Cathartics may be added to activated charcoal to hasten elimination.

Feline coronaviruses are large enveloped single-stranded RNA viruses. They can be classified into two subtypes, of which Type I is the most prevalent. Type II originated from recombination of Type I FCoV and canine coronavirus and has been used in development of the FIP vaccine.

What ocular abnormality is present in this leopard gecko?

Turtles are found throughout the world on all continents and in all oceans except Antarctica. There are over 300 species of turtles (far fewer than snakes or lizards) that belong to about 90 genera in 13 families (http://www.reptile-database.org/db-info/SpeciesStat.html; accessed 7/09).

Sacculus rotundus; spherical thick-walled enlargement at ileocecal junction. The adjacent cecum has a round patch of lymphoid tissue called the cecal tonsil. The increased thickness of these two lymphoid structures is due to aggregates of organized lymphoid tissue and macrophages in lamina propria and submucosa. Important to recognize this palpable thickening as normal.

Turtles appeared in the fossil record over 200 million years ago and were on earth long before mammals and other forms of present day reptiles. They occur in terrestrial, freshwater aquatic, semiaquatic, and marine environments.

Invertebrate animals comprise 95% of the animal kingdom's species, yet non-parasitic invertebrates are vastly underrepresented in the typical veterinary school curriculum. These notes and the accompanying lecture provide a brief introduction to some of the more prominent invertebrate groups (coelenterates, mollusks, crustaceans, echinoderms, insects, the horseshoe crab, and spiders) and review the state of the science with regards to clinical techniques.

Invertebrate animals comprise 95% of the animal kingdom's species, yet non-parasitic invertebrates are vastly underrepresented in the typical veterinary school curriculum. These notes and the accompanying lecture provide a brief introduction to some of the more prominent invertebrate groups (coelenterates, mollusks, crustaceans, echinoderms, insects, the horseshoe crab, and spiders) and review the state of the science with regards to clinical techniques.

A mid-morning e-mail query from Dr. Craig Harms alerted me to the possibility of impending deployment to the Gulf of Mexico area for oiled sea turtle triage, treatment, and rehabilitation. Apparently the veterinary support for the Audubon Nature Institute's effort was about to head home and a relief team was needed pronto to provide clinical continuity.

Proper positioning is critical. Use of anesthesia and/or restraint boards will reduce the human exposure to radiation, but may pose increased risks to the compromised patient. These risks should be assessed prior to obtaining radiographs.