Everyone Needs an Emergency Avian Vet!

[Winged_Victory]

Everyone needs an Avian Vet! Each and every bird owner should have phone numbers to their avian vet and an Emergency number to call for nights and weekends. You also need to have a backup vet should you not be able to get in touch with your avian vet; this could be a 24 hour emergency veterinary clinic.

Should you have an Emergency; call your avian vet first! If you can’t get in touch with the avian call the Emergency clinic. Post these numbers where you can always find them!

This forum should be the last place you look for information in an Emergency. You are wasting valuable time here asking for help when you should be heading out the door to your avian vet!

When you are asked here to get your bird to an avian vet, it needs to happen! We all love birds and might be able to help but, your avian vet, or 24 hour clinic is equipped with all the emergency supplies, emergency support equipment, and emergency staff to save or doctor your bird!

Remember this! When you think you have a sick bird CALL your avian vet and he can advise should you need to bring the bird in or not. You have very little time with something as fragile as a sick bird, minutes count.

Now that you have read this, it’s time to post the Emergency numbers where you can find them in a hurry. It would be a good idea to program them in your cell phone also.

[gbird]

Excellent Gary. You'd do it for your children. You wouldn't run to a computer if your child was sick.

I work at Petco, and it amazes me the number of people who come into a pet store with a sick animal asking us if we can help, or something to help. We immediatly say, take it to a vet, we are not doctors, and even if we did have something for your pets symptoms, without knowing what is wrong we can't sell it. I often wonder if these people have a sick child, do they take it to Chucky Cheese for help?

[The Outlaw]

You know, I've been preaching this same sermon for 6 long years. Its so easy to sit down and write down a few numbers. Its easier still to tape them to the top of your first aid kit.

What the hell happens if you can't log on your computer? Does the bird just die? Wake up, folks. We are here to help you get that bird to a vet and hopefully help you learn how to manage it. However, a sick bird ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO SEE AN AVIAN VET. To do less is completely negligent. No more excuses. Pony up and do it right. If you love them, take care of them.

[Valo's Moirana]

not to be insulting, but shouldn't that be common sense? as gbird said, you'd have that for kids too.
in addition, if you only once pick up a book about bird health - it's the very first thing you run across.

nevertheless, i guess it's a good reminder. thanks for pointing that out again, gary!

edit: not only have the phone numbers readily available, but also DIRECTIONS! as well as it takes forever to go online to ask someone for help, it also takes a long time to get your directions off mapquest or such! [and now we could go into "have your travel case easily accessible, not on the bottom of the pile in the garage...." and so forth - just make sure you can run out of the house in 5min in case of the emergency knowing where you're going]

[Lisa B]

In my bird room, on thier closet door, I keep a list of 7 board certified avian vets numbers, as well as the centers they send thier emergencies to, and some of thier cell phone numbers for emergency as well. I printed out directions from my doorstep to ALL the Dr's listed I have them arranged so they are listed in the way I would use them if I needed to.
I have my two main vets printed out and on my refridgerator with Directions also. My neighbor, who has my alarm code, also has ALL my vet info. The township police, that have my alarm registed, also has my vet info.(not sure if they would ever use it)
My vet is also listed in my cell phone.


another important thing is to take a dry run if possible to your emergency clinic BEFORE an emergency happens. In an emergency, EVERY SECOND counts.

Ny people- Animal Medical Center in Manhattan open 24/7/365 212-838-7053 is the appointment number....check the site for main numer. Dr Quesenberry is the Exotic dept head.

NJ people (Northern) AMC is where you will all be sent....even from Oradell and West Caldwell. Oradell and West Caldwell use AMC as THIER emergency clinic.

NJ People (central-south east) Red Bank Vet Hospital Tinton Falls NJ 732-747-3636 open 24/7/365 Dr Brown is the Exotic dept. head.
Dr Strunk and Dr Pilney are also wonderful vets.

NJ/Pa/Del people, University of Pa in Philly. Dr Rosenthal is the Exotic dept head. Dr B(Joelle or close to that) is also very good.

[little_angels]

i agree..we have our avian vets number plus 3 emergancy vets posted on the fridge and in my mobile phone...i also know where each live incase i need to go over in the middle of the night..its easy to get lost when given directions not so easy when youve been there a few times before!

gbird..i manage the local pet store right now and ur right..the amount of people who call to us for adivce because they dont want to spend money on a vet...my advice to them is its €1,000 for a parrot €400 for a cage another €400 on toys and food...what difference is another €50 going to make to know you bird is healthy...its worst to loose €50 than loose a few thousand because you are too tight

[Miro The Macaw]

Originally Posted by Valo's Moirana

not to be insulting, but shouldn't that be common sense?

Perhaps it should be- But how often do people seem to go online and look first?? How often do you have a 'new member' who's first post is something like "My bird is having seizures, what should I do", or something similar.... Kind of scary, really...

-Andrew

[Mike B]

Post. Great reminder. Anyone that has bird for more than a year KNOWS this. NO bird, EVER, EVER gets sick Mon-Fri. Please learn how to pull a broken blood feather, stop a bird from bleeding. Have a well equipped first-aid kit on hand.

Mike

[Tiki]

Excellent post Gary! My AV recently moved from an all-pet practice and set up a birds only practice about 5 minutes from my home but it's M-F only. However, when I had Maui in there a couple weeks ago with his injured foot, they informed me that the all-pet practice will still see birds on an emergency/weekend basis and phone my AV if it's life or death emergency that only a certified AV can deal with. So now I know! Good idea to program the cell phones too.

[Maui's Mom]

Thanks Gary for the friendly reminder and THANKS to Lisa for posting the info about our local vets in Jersey. Even thou I have Red Bank in my phone book, now i printed it out and I'll leave it in my bird drawer with the rest of the reading stuff I look at often.

See, its great members like this that remind us of the small lil things we always should know and have handy, that make this community so wonderful and so worth visiting everyday !!