Chrysocome

I got 20 for the first but didn't work out the other one. This is one of my childhood favourites: "The beginning of eternity, The end of time and space. The beginning of every end, The end of every place." What is it? No cheating please

It's interesting, because Milly adores hulled oats! It's the first thing she'll eat when I refill the seed. But Squee always leaves them behind so it kind of works out. Welcome to the forums, Marlo's mum.

Hey MB, I use to take lessons in the city, but I just don't have the time to go there these days. They're a group that teaches beginners and goes through the basics each week. There's one in every state capital I believe. I was so unfit at the time that I'd be incredibly, unbelievably sore for about 5 days after, lol. It's amazing just to watch those guys when they have their 'jams', flying through the streets (and over any walls and obstacles on it) with ease. These days I practice on whatever I find on my jogs and with a friend of mine at uni, we have some really good 'training equipment' aka benches, low walls, gates and horse yards (when there aren't any animals in it of course!).

I don't do contact defense, but I am learning a defensive art of a sort - le parkour. It is the art of getting from point A to point B in the quickest route possible - even if that means going over fences, scaling walls, leaping, vaulting and landing on objects. The idea is that in a rescue or escape situation, you will be able to do it as fast as you can. It's like gymnastics and running in one - and mainly in an urban setting. It sort of has two faces - Parkour is 100% about efficiency - flips and trying to show off fantastic moves with no purpose are frowned on. Like you wouldn't do a flip if you were trying to rescue someone. When you add flips, aesthetics and just plain looking cool into the equation, it is called freerunning instead. (And then if you have the cool moves on their own without running, it's simply called tricking). It looks like this - http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=6qhgIdP3l3I Melbournites might find this familiar... http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=DuHDAwhUQ_A It's great for fitness, motivation, confidence and has a good purpose too. It really changes your perspective of the world and your own boundaries - both external and internal.

As MB said, your budgie should be getting more than just seed - veggies are very important for them. Eating only seed is like people eating just bread or rice. We need more than that to stay healthy and so do budgies. Being thin, not eating much and green poos mean that he is not healthy at the moment. Their poo should have a dark brownish/black colour which holds its shape (not runny), a white dot, and a tiny bit of liquid. Those signs make me think there might also be something else going on with him so watch him carefully. Other than being older with less nutrition, home brand mixes also commonly put in 'filler' seeds like sorghum. It is a hard, red seed, which it seems to me that budgies can't eat anyway. (Could this be part of the problem for you CaspersRose? I only worked it out after seeing my budgies always leave it at the bottom of their dish and seeing that others here said the same thing). So home brand is more expensive for less value in the long run.

Quick comment because it made me laugh so much. (If you're wondering what's up with Linka and Wheeler, it's because someone had to "switch outfits with a member of the opposite gender for the whole night" - no one got a picture before they switched but we looked so awesome together) We're a studious lot, we vet students. Um... I'll explain when I update on the weekend

Nice list AV, just thought I'd update it though. Both Karl Harrigan and Dave Madill have retired. It is now Matthew Gosbell who looks after birds at Springvale. Anne Fowler of Torquay has moved to NSW, but I am fairly sure their clinic still takes birds. Pat McWhirter and Peter Sacks of Burwood, and Colin Walker of Knox, are also bird specialists (listed in the first post)

Hey SW, here's what Ritchie BW, Harrison GJ, Harrison LR. Calcium metabolism. In: Avian medicine: principles and application Wingers Publishing, Florida 1994:590 said. And from (MD McGavin Zachary JF, Rickets and osteomalacia. In: Pathologic Basis of Veterinary Disease Elsevier, Missouri 2007;1074) I thought the same as you though. Again, it is a bit confusing because of the interactions of vitamin D, calcium and also phosphorus - getting enough of these and getting the right balance. I can't put up my photos of rubber jaw either. It's also called osteodystrophia fibrosa and osteitis fibrosa, but that didn't turn anything up on google either. There's some nice photos in my pathology textbooks too.

Cool water straight after a burn is best (it is probably too late now). The idea is to cool the area down so the residual heat and inflammation doesn't cause further damage than what was done at the time of contact. I hope he is okay. You mentioned he felt thin with a bony chest. A bird doesn't lose weight overnight. If he is thin it means there is something else going on with his health. What is he eating? What do his poos look like? Is he active or does he sit around not doing much? I was also wondering if the sandwich maker is made of Teflon? Teflon fumes are toxic to birds, so it shouldn't be used near birds. Of course, nothing should be cooking when a bird is out. But Teflon fumes can kill birds if they are in the same room.

I also thought hen out of condition, but, as others have said a change in the balance of sex hormones such as tumours of the testicle or ovary can cause a cere to change dramatically. When you do see a vet make sure it is an avian (bird) vet, as a normal small animal vet would not know as much and won't have tests readily available to them.

Ew... and what's even more gross is that birds have their vocal cords in their chest so they can keep squawking too. They always tell us to go nowhere near the legs of a newly killed large animal - horses especially. Their nerves can keep firing even if they are actually dead, so they can reflex kick and still kill you. Feeling morbid and... thoughtful... today - Groups D and C visited a prime lamb abattoir and witnessed the process from the moment the sheep were unloaded on the property, to when their bits were packaged and frozen (and everything in between). Very much an eye opener. I think that people should face what they are causing to happen instead of masking the brutality and sheer... number... of it. I know i'm behind on my updates, I will do Paraclinical 1 and 2 (weeks 3 and 4) together at the end of the week.

Ah. I have always known what Sailorwolf said- as a medical term rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency, and osteoporosis (mainly) by calcium deficiency. It has always confused me around here, because most seem to associate rickets with calcium, not vitamin D. They are both intimately linked in maintaining bone, which is probably lending to the confusion.

Photo time with Squee

Yup - I was about to say something like that. I think I will write an article about livers and green poo soon.

I certainly think it is; although the surgery report is so tedious that it's dissuading me somewhat. You know, I totally thought the same thing in high school, blood scared me a lot and I thought I wouldn't be cut out (no pun intended) for vet type stuff. But I've been totally desensitsed over three years to the kinds of things we do - I imagine it'd be the same for doctors. That said, nothing quite prepared me for the first time I cut into a living thing (it was anaesthetised of course). After three years of dissecting cadavers, I was totally fazed by the fact that I'd caused something to bleed. (Dead things are cold, don't bleed and if they do it's very dark and thick), it was so obvious but it was just a little shock that first time. The other thing is that living things move; arteries dance as blood moves through them, and even the gut moves all on its own, it's really creepy and no one prepares you for that kind of thing! So I eventually learnt not to let things like that bother me anymore. It's an odd feeling, becoming distanced from the gross things you see, and totally forgetting that other people are 'normal' and don't want to hear about that thing over dinner! Lol!

Dear Joss, you've done it again. I'm in love. I absolutely adored this, it was fantastic! I highly recommend it. I can't wait for it to come out on dvd. I've been singing the songs all week and think I'm coming to the Armageddon Expo as Dr Horrible and one of my friends as Captain Hammer. Lol! AV, I know, Dollhouse will be great. Are you on Serenity Oz by any chance? This might interest you - hehe. http://johnnysnow.sigil.biz/

Week 2: Surgery Well, what a week it has been! To start with, let me explain the rotations. Each student is placed in a rotation group, and each week we move to a new rotation. There are three days of official prac days (Tuesday to Thursday) but in some rotations our responsibilities carry on through to the next Tuesday including the weekend. Surgical rotation takes place in the hospital. We’re in with our sister group (group C), who are doing Anaesthesiology. We start every morning in rounds at 8:30. We go through each patient in the hospital requiring surgery, so we are kept updated by surgeons, clinicians and sometimes students taking care of a case: the history of the patient, what’s happened so far and the plan for the day. Any new cases get divided between the student surgical and anaesthetist teams. So each student has an animal to look after while it’s in hospital. Every morning before rounds (and lectures) and every evening we have to do a TPR (temperature, pulse/heart, respiration), walk, feed and assess our case, and also give any meds required. Let me add that these are real cases, so the pressure is really on! There are of course clinicians, surgeons and nurses looking over your shoulder but they ask you questions constantly and you get marked on initiative, knowledge, communication and decision making. We follow our case from the consult, through the surgery, into recovery and finally discharge. When surgery is on you might be lucky enough to get to do some of it; usually you get to scrub in and be right there helping the surgeon out. (‘Scrub in’ means to do a total sterile scrub of your arms/hands, then put on a sterile gown, gloves, cap and mask). I scrubbed in on one of my main cases, who had his spleen totally removed. I just had to hold things for that. But it’s awesome enough just being allowed to scrub in; the other students have to stand back at least 1m from the surgical table so everything stays sterile (you can barely see anything if you're not scrubbed in). I was also lucky enough to perform a spay, which I did almost entirely by myself (the supervising surgeon had to close the skin because I ran out of time and my patient was getting dangerously cold). It was a great feeling, I really love surgery and am looking at doing some more of it in my extramural work. My last case was a dog that tore its cranial cruciate ligament (in the knee) and was getting a procedure where they cut out a piece of bone, rotate it and plate it back on, to redistribute the forces from the torn ligament and decrease pain. It was so cool. I’ve been looking after him for four days (which means I had no weekend!). I had forgotten just how amazing surgery is. We’ve been somewhat desensitised for years and I only just realised again how incredible it all is. I also got to go and watch other cases and surgeries, and freak out over how much the anaesthetist students had to know. Watching other surgeries was great, particularly when it’s your good friend doing the surgery! But there are some incredible procedures that go on in our hospital. I stayed after hours most nights just because the surgery was so cool. There was one case where they did surgery entirely through tiny holes in the body wall – one for the camera, two for instruments. One of the dogs had an undescended testis in his abdomen. They removed it entirely with one instrument that held onto things, the other instrument was an electrocautery device. That means it ran a current between two points and literally cooked the tissue, so it acted as a scalpel but there was no bleeding at all. Endoscopy is always amazing, I feel like I’m swimming through giant organs XD So that was my week, I really enjoyed it and think I will pursue surgery further in my work experience. Now I have to write up a case report for one of my cases... I am SO sleepy!

Part 3: The mechanics of breathing Note: This topic of article has some difficult concepts but I have tried to keep it easy to read so you can appreciate how the system works. However, feel free to ask questions here as I am always ready to discuss this topic. Also, in this article I have used words like ‘cranial’ and ‘caudal’. Assume for now that cranial means the front end (towards the head). Caudal refers to the back end (towards the tail). As we saw in the previous article, birds have a complex respiratory system in close association with abdominal/thoracic organs and the bones. In birds, the act of breathing relies on the lungs, air sacs, chest/abdominal muscles and sternum (keel/breast bone). Birds have a unique mechanism of breathing that is very efficient, and flow occurs in one direction (as opposed to the ‘in, then out of lungs’ type of breathing in mammals). In mammals, fresh air reaches the lungs only on inhalation; exhalation pushes the air out of the body. In birds, fresh air arrives at the lungs when they breathe in and out. http://www.inplainsite.org/assets/images/Avian-Lung.jpg Volume and pressure are intimately related (a general law of physics). Imagine we have a fixed amount of air (and therefore a fixed pressure) inside a rubber ball with a hole in it. If we squeeze the ball (decrease its volume), the pressure rises inside so air goes out of the ball. When we let go, the elasticity in the ball makes it change volume and air will go back in. In general, we can think of the air sacs (and mammalian lungs) as a rubber ball with a hole in it. The sternum and chest muscles act as the squeezing/releasing force. For the diagrams below, the lungs are represented by ‘paleopulmonic parabronchi’ at the top of the picture. The first two air sacs on the left I will collectively call ‘cranial air sacs’; the two on the right are the ‘caudal air sacs’. Inhalation (filling air sacs) The sternum is lowered and the ribs moved outwards. This allows the air sacs to expand. Fresh air moves from outside, down the trachea, and to the caudal air sacs. (1) Stale air from the lungs is pushed to the cranial air sacs. (3) http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/Airflowlungs1.gif Exhalation (emptying air sacs): Sternum is raised, abdominal muscles contract. Air is forced out of the air sacs. Fresh air from the caudal air sacs enters the lungs. (2) Stale air from the cranial air sacs exits the body. (4) http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/Airflowrespiration2.gif It takes two inhalations to complete a cycle in the respiratory system (follow the numbers above). To summarise, air moves from outside, down trachea to caudal air sacs, across lungs, to cranial air sacs, and out of the body. In both expiration and inspiration, fresh air is moving across the lungs. This makes the birds highly efficient breathers and it is why they are so sensitive to smaller insults than mammals are – for example birds are much more sensitive to the fumes from Teflon cookware because they absorb it into their bodies when both breathing in and out. Because of the coelomic position of the air sacs, a bird’s tail may pulse (tail bobbing) with each breath if it is having trouble breathing. This may occur if it has just been stressed or exercising, or due to any illness making it hard for the air sacs to change size (this can be anywhere in the body). The tail muscles assist with the sternum and ribs to help push air out of its air sacs. Respiratory system: Key points Birds rely on the movement of their chest to breathe, so never restrict a bird’s chest They also cool down via evaporation of warm moisture through breathing – not being able to inhale deep enough will lead to overheating Highly efficient breathing means that they are more susceptible to smaller insults than mammals (Teflon fumes, infection) The respiratory system is physically close to the thoracic organs, abdominal organs and bones. Infections of the respiratory system can quickly become widespread, and disease can move between any of these areas. So you may see signs in one body system even if the real problem is in another. Further reading: http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/birdrespiration.html As above, this site is a good reference for everything about bird breathing. http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/multimedia/birdlungs/ A great animation of the constant fresh air moving across the lungs (parabronchi) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...iration.svg.png Another representation of the mechanism of breathing in birds. ------------ Next up: Anatomical directions. This will help you understand general anatomical descriptions in all animals (and maybe what I’ve said previously will make more sense!)

Well, Semester 6 (Semester 2 of Third Year) has begun. I can't tell you how excited I am (nor how utterly, utterly terrified!) It started with our White Coat Ceremony on Sunday, where there was a big ceremony with all our families present. Each of us got a brand new labcoat. It is an occasion that marks the transition from vet student to trainee vet, taking us out of the lecture halls and placing us in the hospital with real clients and patients. This is how the rest of the semester works for me. From now on each student group goes into rotations between the different parts of the hospital. (After the nightmare of picking groups in first semester, it turns out that groups C and D are sister groups so I ended up with all my friends anyway). This is my schedule: 1: No rotations 2: Small animal surgery 3: Paraclinical sciences 1 (post mortems, microbiology, clinical pathology) 4: Paraclinical sciences 2 (post mortems, microbiology, clinical pathology) 5: Equine medicine and surgery 6: Agricultural animals 7: Special topics (dermatology, cardiology, exotic pets) 8: Emergencies and critical care 9: Radiology 10: Small animal medicine 11: Small animal referrals 12: Anaesthesiology Week 1: Pig Week This was quite a week - 8am to 5pm, solid lectures basically. I was going insane by the end of it. Most of it was on pigs. I like the feeling of the lectures now, I feel like they apply more to what I'm going to do and they make heaps more sense that way. The only prac was on Friday, a pig autopsy, which was actually very interesting - ours had extremely severe changes. (Too bad I fell asleep during the introduction lecture!) To make matters worse our group Veterinary Public Health assignment was due (as some of you know) so I was just exhausted by the end of it. I slept and slept on the weekend! Impending exhaustion and stress, here I come!

When I was little, I wanted to be a vet. What am I now? Still wanting to be a vet! LOL. But I'm three quarters of the way there. The other things I did/still want to do are: be an artist and a writer, someday write/direct some films, do some voice acting for fun. At one point in high school I was going to be a doctor and then a psychologist. In uni I was two steps from being a biomedical scientist and going into research. But now I am in vet school and that is where I am happy

I take part in a monthly art exchange and we got a theme this month, which is 'lyrics'. I chose the song 'Starlight' by Muse because it fit my character perfectly. (Great song, by the way) Hours of fascinated clicking on Google later, I came across this And this - it is a GIANT image (1500x1500px) but absolutely worth the wait. http://zebu.uoregon.edu/hudf/hudf_150dpi.jpg I hope it inspires you to think outside your little place in the universe, and to think about the world and its existence on a larger scale.

Thank you everyone for your help, I did get it in on time so now I have to start worrying about the next assignment Special thanks to Melbournebudgies who helped me so much. I had an exhausting week... I spent 8am-5pm doing 7 hours of lectures then stayed up to 1am most nights doing this assignment (kind of sad, since it was given to us in April). I accidentally slept in today... and woke up at 3:30... :shock: DrNat... that is still very common today! Lol. The presence of the infectious agents and random chance play a part too. This is what it ended up looking like (not the final cut for the actual writing though) How many pop culture references can you find in our first page? Lol. The other articles in the paper are about antibiotic resistance in bacteria. If anyone would like to read it I can post a link to it somewhere. Thanks again to everyone!

Double posting - hope it's okay as I need this done by Friday afternoon. Because I'm lazy (and also very sleepy) here it is as a link. http://www.freewebs.com/chrysocome/zoonoses.htm Post here or PM anything that doesn't make sense or is difficult to understand. Thanks so much everyone. I think I'll be doing one for pet and wild birds for this site . EDIT: Forgot to mention that this is targeted at dairy farmers. Mastitis = inflammation of the teat causing rotten milk. Splash guard = used to redirect urine away from where workers are milking.

Oh wow, thanks you guys, really appreciated. And I did not mean 'simple' in that way LOL!

I have this assignment: to write an article for my imaginary veterinary clinic's newsletter, on zoonoses (diseases that can be spread to humans from animals). It's basically taking the previous two years of my in-depth scientific study and then re-translating all that in simple terms. I'm finding it hard to work out whether I'm still speaking gibberish or whether a normal person can understand me. So I would be grateful if someone could read over the article to help me with that. Just let me know (you can PM me) and I'll PM it to you when I'm ready for it to be proofread. It's due on Friday night so after editing by my friends I should have it out tomorrow. It's an interesting assignment - I think I have taken for granted that I can use big long words to perfectly describe something, forgetting that it's a completely different language for most people!