Chrysocome

Thanks guys. Sailor, hope all went well for you! Amazingly, I like parasitology. Yes, I'm a freak. I wonder if you would benefit from some of my diagrams from last year... You should totally keep a blog too. Just a short one like mine is. I'd love to hear about how your course differs to mine. The un-fun stuff about my uni was concerning the use of live animals in teaching - particularly the (extremely few) terminal surgeries. I agree the whole thing is incredibly sad, but I don't believe we're evil for doing it - if anything we give a bit of light to a terrible thing. But that's a different issue, and I get really fired up about it, don't want to sully everyone else's day. Last week was... very quiet. I had four afternoons off! Wednesday - afternoon class was cancelled and still hasn't been rescheduled - I bet they put it at a terrible time when I really need the break. Thursday - Small animal opthalmology. I loved this lecturer! He presented everything in a logical and thought provoking way, excellent teaching. We learnt all the common eye problems, breed dispositions and eye-related tests. Me looking into greyhounds' eyes with different viewers. To spare the poor pups' eyes we decided to test each other instead. Schirmer tear test - you stick the little bit of paper between your eyelid and eyeball and wait five minutes - apparently it's really irritating, as it should be - it's supposed to make you cry! I gotta tell ya - the medicos are missing out! Our companion mammals have a tapetum lucidum in their eye which is what causes their reflective eyes at night. It is absolutely gorgeous - bright green and yellow with edges of pearlescent blue. Gorgeous. Friday- obstetrics in the morning. Taking more calves out of the fake cows Saturday - me and some friends went to fly the Bellflower. Bellflower is a set in north Melbourne based on the tv show Firefly and the movie Serenity. It was built by fans for a fan film. The place is just so incredible. I'm going to be an extra on the show :budgiedance: Sunday - Flake and I went to the wedding of our friends, who also met on the internet via the same forum :budgiedance: Monday - Morning Pathology rounds was Nervous system. Afternoon was bovine reproduction - we preg tested cows per rectum. I felt a calf! :budgiedance: The demonstrator also did an ultrasound on one of the pregnant cows, it was sooo awesome. There's just something so precious about new life. Tuesday - Thoracic radiology - lots of case studies, we looked at X-rays with different conditions of the thorax. Wednesday (today) - an afternoon off. You'd think I could study, but no. Somehow in the past week, I've been roped into two committees! One is the Small Animal Interest Group, currently in a creative role but in a few months as a board member role... probably treasurer... eep. The other is the Albeitera commitee, I'm secretary. Albeitera is our yearbook and it takes stacks of work, but I just know it will be awesome! Some work I've been doing - Cocktail night ad... get it? The theme is 'gems of wisdom' and you are required to wear black, silver and emerald. Albeitera ad as a motivational poster http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/Chrys...teraposter1.jpg Vet show box set - Work in progress :budgiedance: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/Chrys...8/dvdmockup.jpg Thought I should also tell everyone that I haven't forgotten about the things I said I'd do - I have an Avian Biology article brewing, I've just been so swamped with uni-sort-of work that it's been pushed to the side. :budgiedance:

SQUEEEE! Another bird vet in the making Congratulations!

I am always amazed at how much amusement a budgie can find in a simple toy! My budgies have never really gone for elaborate expensive toys - their favourites are really simple. Squee: She adores this little toy I made in about ten minutes - a beaded chain with a metal clip. I clip it on the horizontal bars of her cage and she will spend hours tugging at it, sliding it along the bar, nibbling at each bit, picking it up, trying to fly away with it, growling at it, singing to it, pecking at it, boxing with it..! Here it is out of the cage. (She loves that yellow bead too!) She can pick it up from each of the beads (including the pony beads) or the metal bit. Milly investigates the pink one but isn't impressed. (All the better for me! Squee says). Milly: I don't have a picture of Milly's favourite toy. It comes from that very same chain of balls that everyone seems to have! But it's not the balls - it's the plastic hook! I have hooked it onto her main perch. Milly, sweet little thing she is, will spend hours with her head floofed up, eyes closed, with the bit of the hook that sticks out for head scritches. *rubrubrub* It's so adorable. Do carrots count as toys? Cause that comes a close second!

Oh I'm in love!!! What an absolutely gorgeous little flock. Budgie of the month picture *hint* Scooter, I heart you <3

Phew! Thank goodness

Gumpy is just so adorable I love that soft yellow colour. Elly, you are made of awesome knowledge , you taught me so much about bird behaviour in just ten minutes of reading, thank you so much.

picture has me a bit worried. The yellow bit seems to be the same colour/consistency as this bird with an (extreme) fatty lump - lipoma/xanthoma. http://www.birdhealth.com.au/bird/er/budgietumour.jpg Which came from this site - http://www.birdhealth.com.au/bird/er/conditions.html I'm also a bit worried about the dark red above that - from what I have seen normal skin should be a fleshy pink. I'm thinking a vet visit somehow.

Sailor - With yolk in the coelom, would you be able to see it through the abdominal muscles and peritoneum and all that? I'm thinking it's subcutaenous. If it were any other person on another site I would have said lipoma with xanthoma, but Neat's birds have exercise and veggies and all that. Can lipomas start in a non-obese bird? It is a neoplastic process I guess. Do you have any ideas? Neat, if you are willing to handle her (don't if you think it will be too stressful) does her belly feel fluid, soft or firm? If you lift up the feathers elsewhere on the belly is it the same thing (the yellowy colour)?

She is just testing her limits Liv - seeing if she can find a weak spot to get out. Perhaps she is used to being in a bigger cage. It's possible she is frightened when you come around so tries anything she can to escape. Or perhaps she can hear the others and wants to be with them. Squee did this for a good week or two before she settled down. She wasn't afraid of me however - she was just learning about her new environment, which was smaller than the aviary she came from. I'm not sure what else you can do to distract her but I think if you give her some time she should settle down.

I can't believe it's been (more than) a week already. A horsey week it was! -Monday: Morning- Pathology rounds; foetus and placenta. Same old pathology rounds. I went and wandered around the hospital/labs looking for people to ask about bird work. I met some of the lovely bird pathologists, who promised to call me if anything interesting came up, particularly in the autopsy room. Arvo- Equine diagnostic techniques. We went around the horse wards looking at each patient - including one that was giving blood, and ten minutes later a sick one getting that blood. We followed the case of a lovely old donkey with a sinus problem. We connected a teaching horse to an electrocardiogram, did the routine listening to heart sounds and lung sounds. We also got to put an endoscope into a horse's oronasal cavity - that was soo awesome, though I was a little scared of holding a $10,000 piece of equipment while sitting precariously in front of a horse and sticking the little tube in its nose! -Tuesday was more bovine reproduction - yet again, hands up cow bums! I'm getting the hang of it. -Wednesday, an afternoon off! Yay! -Thursday: Equine bandaging techniques. We learnt how to bandage each joint. It was heaps of hands on experience and I'm gaining more confidence around horses. -Friday: Equine farrier techniques. A farrier who does the racehorses (!) came out and showed all these different techniques about horses' feet. Picking them up, cleaning them with all the different tools, taking off shoes, hoof testing, trimming nails. We had pieces from cadavers to practice putting shoes in and taking them out. I got to wear the fancy farrier pants! Once again, an incredible hands on experience we had on the horses this week. -Weekend: I desperately wanted to cram for Monday's pathology test, but had a (fellow vet student's) 21st to go to! The theme was 'back to nature' and I came as a fairy. -Monday: The dread path quiz!! I don't want to think too much about it -Tuesday ie today: I was supposed to have a free afternoon but bummed around at uni. I almost regretted wasting time not studying at home until one of the bird pathologists happened to stumble across me in the halls. I was told I had to go to the autopsy room! Well, I got there and there was a final year bird prac going on - they were doing autopsies on chickens- Nothing special. I shrugged and went in - and there was a brolga! They actually let me help out on the autopsy. The poor bird had been incredibly sick, and I could describe all the lesions but people would probably get grossed out. Let's just say, it was a mess in there. Somebody was also autopsying a budgie I just couldn't look. I know I'll have to face it at some point but I got all choked up today. It has been a dark cloud at vet school lately. Students and staff alike are furious and upset about some bad media we got on our Open Day on the weekend. There have been things taken completely out of context, utterly misleading statements and vital information conveniently left out. I've learnt not to trust what I read/see from the media ever again. I've been a little afraid I'd come here to find everyone up in arms about it, so I bring it up now before somebody reads the mass of bias that is out there. If you come across it, please keep an open mind, watch for misleading information, and feel free to ask me about it. Oh, I forgot to tell this story which happened before the holidays. I was wandering down the halls when I saw the red light was on in the autopsy room. Curious, I went up to the airlock and peeked through the window. I thought, what a strange dog? (I couldn't see very much) Then did a double take. Orange, black, what? It was a tiger cub!

Small animal vets :budgiedance: I personally wouldn't do the direct heat treatment - way too easy to overheat a bird especially if they can't get away! The first thing they do at bird clinics is give a shot of calcium so calcivet would be my recommendation (as well as hospital cage etc). The vets then try to gently push it out. If that fails they try ovocentesis - collapse the egg with a syringe and very gently extract the pieces with forceps, then give drugs so the rest come out over time.

Sailor - I think so, you can be a bird vet without being an avian specialist (ie get an MACVS Certificate for Avian Health) - same way we can go out and become 'small animal vets' or 'horse vets' or 'zoo vets' etc - our qualifications pretty much cover it all. Most vet students focus on the animals they're interested in and when they graduate they do the same, and then don't deal much with those they aren't interested in - ie I will never call myself an equine vet! That's why we tell people here to go see bird vets not small animal vets. The latter usually have never focused on birds during uni and then wanted nothing to do with them in practice. Of course the MACVS (Avian health) is a stamp of prestige/assurance, which can only be issued after a certain number of years in practice, two years study and exams.

Cannibalism is one species eating the same species - it is extremely simple for diseases because that's what they're adapted to. But there is something called a species barrier. In Darwin's theory, monkeys and humans are NOT the same species, they're not even in the same Family. I used to have this argument with my friends about seagulls eating chicken. The group called 'birds' is made up of thousands of different species, Genera and Families. Seagulls and chickens are classed under 'birds' the same way humans and pigs are classed under 'mammals'. If a seagull eating chicken is cannibalism then so is a human eating cow or pig. Feeding chickens to chickens on the other hand, to me that's a complete no-no. Just being a little nitpicky there.

Ee... Maesie I'm so excited for you.. Wish I was going away! *jealous* We sure will miss you around here! You are going to have a blast.

I am going to say something frustrating - yes to all those Kaz. It just means that the bird has some kind of nasal discharge, probably from sneezing. It's gotten stuck to the feathers around the cere, dried and then matted over time. It's not a definite sign of any particular disease/condition- only that it is affecting the upper respiratory system as you said Kaz, and all those you mentioned could cause it. Infections, malnutrition and foreign bodies are also on the list. How is his breathing Liv? Do you see him sneezing or having trouble breathing?

:huh: :fear <-- that was me! (Laughing out loud)! How bizarre!

Yup Milly and Squee go nuts, dancing and singing when they hear the tap on - you should see them when I'm washing the dishes or their cage! I think it's especially important for budgies, who are desert birds, it must mean the end of summer/drought etc, a time of plenty. I also imagine they're wired to appreciate water where they can get it :fear

:fear Not liking the sound of that at all. I'm with Elly, can you get a picture?

Huh?? What? Me? I'd love to hear everyone's arguments too. I think it would be great to have a healthy discussion and then make a list of for/against 'arguments' (the friendly kind), so we can put them up (faq maybe?) and let each person decide for themselves. I've spoken to two esteemed bird vets on this. It seems the debate amongst them is just as heated as with owners and breeders. One of them was a very highly known avian vet, and I noted from an older generation of vets and bird keepers, he said "yes, yes, of course yes!" because even though seed is hulled, the inside still needs to be digested! It's not as soft as you might think. Budgies like chickens have a grinding gizzard for digestion and providing soluble, solid material helps in that process - acting like teeth (otherwise the seed would still be absorbed but more slowly and perhaps less efficiently). They would swallow bits of sand and stuff in the wild even when they hull seeds - it is natural for them. He also spoke about the soluble minerals that are vital for birds. I asked about impaction and he said that in health they should be able to regulate their own needs. There should always be a small amount, not enough for damage if one obsessively swallows it. The other vet is a more 'recent' (as in fifteen years) graduate and he said what a lot of you are saying - seeds are hulled and they're fairly digestible. There is a risk of engorgement and impaction that some of us aren't willing to take, especially when our birds are sick. We now have other ways of giving minerals. Their diets are getting heaps better these days. I'm curious now and will see what other avian vets I can ask - I'm just about to organise more work experience at a second bird hospital, and she's extremely well known, I'll see what she says about it. I'll also poke around the bird pathologists I just met. Myself - I have a tiny amount mixed in with the seed. Not much. I hate the seed mixes that come with those whole shells, as if they'd ever swallow that - bulk weight I say :fear I personally don't think there is a great need for it, especially my pet non-breeding budgies who I know eat their veggies/cuttle bone and so on. But that is my view. I think I'll go poke around some more about this. Derek - I've never heard that, I'll see what I can dig up

Was he flying around really high mag? A good clip doesn't actually stop them from flying, only from gaining height.

Thanks everyone. I love my chickens! Libby they sound so cute. I got my five chickens as tiny chicks, I have photos from way back, they were so fluffy and cute! We got them from a show breeder out west, I went there for work experience and we made such a deep connection that he gave them to me as a parting gift (as well as dozens of eggs!). One of the five was a male, the breeder was happy to take beautiful Royston back when the big boy discovered his voice. The breeder later gave me the hen I call Hera, she is a rescue from a battery egg system. If you look closely you can see she has been debeaked. She's not a pretty young gal but it brings me so much joy watching her run around, dust bathe and scratching in the litter :offtopic:

Simba, the male Samoyed who was my (fluffy white) shadow down at Kimskova Park, where I worked last year.

Decided to take photos of the chooks this afternoon. Thena and Demi forage in the garden Thena loves plant pots for some reason I tried to catch Aphrodite's iridescent feathers while she was dust bathing, but she was moving too much. She's really quite spectacular in real life, I can't catch it on camera. More chickens... hey wait a sec, that's not a chicken!! (Laughing out loud), a crested pigeon and some sparrows decided to join us for dinner. I love crested pigeons - they make me giggle. Demi is such a character - she's really smart, follows me around and is always interested in what I'm doing. Missy and the pigeon waddling away there. Hera inspects a leaf...? My herd: Four bantams and a rhode island red... (and a pigeon!)

Eee! How exciting Maesie! Make sure you take lots of photos and post lots, make us all jealous! :yellowhead: HAVE FUN!

This week on Chryso puts her hand in things.... There's a cow! Yes, I warn you now, there's a picture of me with my hand up a cow's bottom ... Well it has been a crazy week, I'm tired already and it's just the first week back from holidays. This is going to be a quick summary of the entire week, since I have a stack of work to do. Monday - Pathology rounds. Every Monday morning we have path rounds where there is an overall theme eg. liver, they get all the museum specimens and display them in the autopsy room, we have to figure out what's wrong with them, why and how etc. Brilliant way to start the week eh? That day was 'reproductive systems', bet you're glad I didn't get any pictures of that :yellowhead: Monday afternoon, had a radiology prac where we got about twelve different cases, we had to look at radiographs and try to figure out what was going on. Tuesday - Repro 2. This time it was a cow. We had to go per rectum and learn what a normal uterus/ovaries felt like. It's interesting, my right hand remembers the horse and now my left hand remembers the cow. I shall hereon call them my cow or horse hands... Wednesday - Clinical pathology. That day was all about the liver. Just some case studies, trying to work out the disease by looking at a biochemical analysis of blood and urine. Thursday - Neurological examination. I love neurology a lot. We had learnt in lectures all the different lesions and signs you get from different parts of the nervous system. There are all these tests you do to assess the nervous system, alongside your normal knee-jerk reactions you can do placing or posture tests. We had a lovely labrador who was normal, and a little kelpie pup who we worked out had a cerebellar problem from his high-stepping gait and inability to wheelbarrow. We also had a lot of fun demonstrating nystagmus on a student by spinning her round and round on a chair, then stopping it suddenly. What happens is your eyes keep flicking in the opposite direction (completely uncontrollable), then the flick in the same direction to compensate. It's really cool, you can try it yourself :yellowhead: Friday - In the morning we were on the non-survival surgical rotation again. I was assistant surgeon for a spay. Being assistant surgeon means you help the anaesthetist and do whatever the head surgeon tells you to do. It also means you go get the dog, do a clinical exam and basically wait around until the other two are finished preparing the operating theater. This also means that you spend a heck of a long time alone with this dog. The one that is going to die when you're done. I... well, let me tell you, it's hard for me to write this. I sat with her and spoke to her, cuddled her endlessly. And, foolish me, I named her. Rest in peace, Firefly, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The procedure went well, we all learnt a lot. I was bawling when they gave her the injection, and we were all very quiet and reserved for the rest of the day. I imagine there will be many times in the rest of my life when I feel like that. Friday afternoon was another bovine obstetrics prac. We had the same task of pulling calves out of fake cows, this time trying harder and harder positions. Friday night was the much anticipated annual Vet Ball, the theme was Animalia: A Masquerade Ball. It was a great night to meet and catch up with everyone in the four levels of vet school. A big week and a bigger one to come - this next week is mostly about horses. There is a pathology quiz after that - so I'm studying for it now! Silly daylight savings, I'm already getting sleepy! Me and the boys with our downer 'cow' I warned you about this one! Vet ball III Was there any doubt about what type of animal I'd be?