Official BYC Poll: Time for the Vet?

[Cturber]

i have a good relationship with livestock vet and can call. So, I’ll go for big stuff. I do pick up the phone for little stuff, bc in chickens the little stuff can turn big if not gotten on top of.

 

[quailmama 82012]

i havent had to take a bird to the vet, and i only would if i couldn't do anything about it. if it was out of my hands, depending on the circumstances i would either go to the vet or cull.
ALL the animals i have are pets, and i treat them like pets

 

[Birdie mom]

i chose the bottom two. i don't know of an avian vet near me and i don't have the kind of money that allows me to spend a ton on one bird that can be replaced in 21 days, not that i don't love my birds it's just that i won't spend a $100 dollars on a chicken that lives 4 years.

 

[doublecrossranch]

I would take mine to the vet for dire and testing but my husband said he would divorce me if I did. Lol. That was an option. Haha

 

[Mrs. K]

Once years ago, what I think was a very wise woman said on here, I no longer remember her name, "You can spend a lot of money on this hobby if you want to, but to be honest you can raise them quite cheaply."

I don't keep a single bird, I keep a flock, the birds come in and out of the flock. I have almost no illness, no physical deformities, no bugs.

 

[HENS-and-MARES]

Some normal vets also do other animals, such as backyard poultry.
Ours is a vet that does cats, dogs, reptiles, backyard poultry, and a bunch of other small animals.

 

[HENS-and-MARES]

Sorry my hens are definitely pets.

Mine are pets to, we’d spend just as much on them as my dog or cats.

 

[Krazikatlady64]

My vet will work on poultry, if needed. I hope I can research enough with the help of this group BYC! I hope to learn to know when a vet is needed and what I can treat myself. These are my first and only birds. They are part of the family.

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Possibly because I worked as a veterinary assistant for eight years (albeit not at a practice that did avian/exotics, but still), for me taking a chicken to the vet is a no-brainer if whatever is happening falls outside of my comfort level. Mine definitely are pets-with-egglaying-benefits, although they haven't gotten to POL yet. Several weeks ago my smallest bird (who is also incidentally my favorite bird) was perched on my shoulder while we were watching a movie and she was nestling into my hair (which I normally never wear down while hangin' with the birds for this reason) and we realized that she'd swallowed a sizeable strand and while struggling to get free had tightly wound the strand around her tongue and it was bulging and white. Husband gave me a very quick trim to detach her from the side of my head, I took one look at her tongue and said, "we need to take her to Emergency, and they WILL need to put her under." I am grateful to have had my experience in vet med, and even though I've never worked in avian, I felt confident of that.

Thankfully, I live in an area with a good 24-hour emergency vet practice. And I was expecting a bill somewhere in the $400-600 range (again based on my own experience having been on the other side), and in the end they only charged us about $200 for the examination, emergency surcharge plus the injection of butorphanol, and had her back to us maybe two and a half hours later.

I will say for folks who are on the "I don't know if my vet's office does poultry," it definitely never hurts to call, and the staff on the other end of the line DO genuinely care about your animals and are happy to advise you where to go even if their office doesn't handle avian. I promise they've gotten that phone call before and know on hand who to advise you to take your birds to or have a ready answer for you. They also won't judge if you're not someone who philosophically stands behind the idea of taking a chicken to the vet but just want that information.

 

[MaryJanet]

I have a very hectic work life and a great avian vet. I can't always afford the time to look up what might be wrong with one of the hens, but I can usually afford the time to take them to the vet.