Pet birds can be a great addition to the family due to their intelligence, inquisitive nature, and entertaining, loving personalities. When bringing a bird into your home, it is important to know what could be potentially toxic to your new pet. The avian respiratory tract is very delicate, which makes them more susceptible to inhalant [...]
In veterinary practices, we often use mild sedation/anxiety medications (oral or injectable) in painful or stressed dogs and cats to assist with full exams, x-rays, ultrasounds, or mildly painful procedures. In birds, we generally need to manually restrain them for full exams, blood work, nail, beak, and wing trims. Manual restraint is stressful for all [...]
As ferrets age, we see symptoms of more chronic illnesses such as periodic lethargy or weakness, hair loss, difficulty urinating, swollen or enlarged vulva, decreased appetite and weight loss. Since most of our ferrets are bred from one location, we see some genetic illnesses with consistency. About 80% of our adult ferrets have a long-standing [...]
When ferrets are young, we see more behavioral issues (such as biting) and gastrointestinal problems such as vomiting and diarrhea. Since ferrets are very inquisitive, they tend to get into things and chew/eat things they shouldn’t. This means foreign body gastrointestinal obstruction is relatively common. This could, unfortunately, require surgery. Gastritis, bloat, gastric ulcers and [...]
Just like dogs, cats and humans, ferrets need dental care too. You can try dental treats (feline dental treats work great), dental wipes or you can even try brushing your ferret’s teeth. Daily dental care is recommended but if you can even brush teeth once weekly (minimum) this can help with dental health. If we [...]
Do you feed insects to your reptiles? If so, it is important to know that most insects lack important vitamins and minerals such as calcium and vitamin A. Because of this, proper supplementation and “gut loading” (feeding your insects a vitamin and mineral rich diet 24-72 hours before feeding them to your reptile) is required [...]