# Anesthesia-when to use, when not to use, and why?



## Guest (Apr 4, 2007)

*Anesthesia-When to use and when not to use...and why?*

Cynthia,
My words baffle you. Read Pierpont's story and better than my baffling you, tell me why you didn't raise Caine when that bird was being cut open without anesthesia and sewn back together like it was a piece of sack cloth. I'm baffled by your silence as I am when this bird's insides were being torn apart by tweezers.
Stop concentrating on me and try to find out why barbaric acts like these are condoned here. I would rather this bird be put to sleep than undergo this day in and day out.
Don't go after me with this, Cynthia. I'm on very firm humane and medical grounds and if you aren't with me on this, what do you stand for, diplomacy? You're picking on the wrong person.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2007)

You know what? If this keeps going, the downside will be to polarize this place. I don't want to do that. I got my points across and that's it. If somebody wants to contact me, use the email. Other than that, I just want to post articles of interest in the news section.


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2007)

i find the lashing out at others in this thread because they dont agree with you very appolling and your tone has yet to be one of concern for anything but your own diagnosis here .. Your very belittling with everything you have said and I for one really think you need to step back and refrain from attacking anyone further if you will .Its a sad day when this has to happen on an open forum like this and I dont get why you continue when you already said you would not be posting any further in this thread ? 
You do realize that the main thing here would be the healing of the bone itself which would have been most likely shattered by a bullet/BB .Now I for one know that many animals and birds alike have healed fine with shrapnel of any kind still inside them and have faired very well with little infection from the gunshot itself .Im most cases they not only leave the bullet inside but use an out side of the leg type k.e apparatuse for holding the bones in place for them to heal with only cleaning /flushing of the external part of the wound itself with of course the aid of antibiotics .Sometimes these bone fragments do die off and just like any splinter the body will try to work them out one way or another but it doesnt necessarily mean the leg will become septic in any way and as long as they are on a good course of antibiotics they should and usually do fair well ,it just takes lots of time for such things to heal .. Now that said I do hope this pigeon will recover from this though Im sure he will always have some type of limp in the end .
Its very hard to judge a case without actually seeing the bird and wound itself but it doesnt mean you have to bash everyone along the route to recovery and by no means gives anyone the right to do so either so please keep it civil, there is no need for hatin on people cuz they arent as smart or savey as another .thankyou for your time and have a great night


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

pigeonperson said:


> You know what? If this keeps going, the downside will be to polarize this place. I don't want to do that. I got my points across and that's it. If somebody wants to contact me, use the email. Other than that, I just want to post articles of interest in the news section.


PigeonPerson: 

Frankly, the above is a joke.

You have already made serious accusations against this forum and its membership, which you have neither (as requested) substantiated nor retracted. Now:



> This site isn't a place to save birds. It's a fiefdom.


Instead, you continue to badmouth the site and all it and the members stand for. You have made it quite evident that you do not have a good word to say about pigeon-life or its participants.

You are not "The Victim" and you are not "The Misjudged". You are not the "Good Guy" among "Bad Guys". You are simply exhibiting a repeated and, by now, predictable behaviour pattern. More recent members may not be aware of this, and have their sympathies manipulated, but older members on this forum (and others) have come to recognize it only too well! I am not a psychologist, so I have no idea why you keep going through this same routine, but enough is enough.

As a moderator I am telling you now - no more of this conduct will be tolerated. 

John D


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

I hate to do this on Moxie's thread but I feel I need to apologize to the members who have been on here longer than me. I initially defended this person without knowing any background, merely the fact that many of his posts carried very good information about the care of birds which is my main concern.

So, to those members that I misunderstood, I apologize. This member's behavior, since I posted in his defense has been argumentative and abusive and I am truly sorry that I didn't understand the background.

I know that many of his last posts have been directed at Pidgey and I resent that tremendously. Pidgey would never cause a pigeon to suffer needlessly and I would trust any of my pigeons to his care, any time.


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

I sure don't know what to say. I was aghast when my vet sewed Pierpont up without anaesthesia. I even asked about it, put him on the spot. He said, simply, that the risks weren't worth it. He also told me that they won't flinch when you're sewing up the crop but they'll get a little testy when you're sewing up the skin. Then I got used to doing it myself perforce, seeing as how the wounds refused to heal cleanly from that very visit. 

I could also see the money invested climbing through the roof if I kept taking the bird back every four days for a month and a half to get it opened back up, debrided and reclosed. As the vet said, "that bird doesn't have enough skin left to work with" so the idea of "sharp debriding" wasn't really applicable.

When I got bit by the wiener dog that opened my chin up, I thought, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" and sewed myself up with no anaesthesia. I found it a lot less painful than that needle they stick in you to inject pain killer, actually. In the books, anaesthesia is used far more for restraint and the control of shock than it is for one's comfort. That's another point that I verified with the vet.

I had wondered aloud in Pierpont's thread if she were going to last long beyond the obviously shoddy workmanship that I'd done, breaking all the rules of the modern surgical theatre. I remember mentioning in the thread that I wanted her to have children soon thereafter so that her spirit and immune system could go on. She's still here and still enthusiastically making copies of herself.

Then, after DD's leg, I'm beginning to see a pattern. I intended to let both of them go but kept them, in the end, at least as much because I DID want to see how they did afterwards, whether they got sick again or what. They've both done pretty well. It's been about 20 months on Pierpont and 8 on DD.

As to debriding, I'm not certain what all the fuss is about. We're not talking about the kind of debriding where you physically scrape or scrub the exposed flesh until it bleeds, you know. It's more like picking boogers out of your nose. The white stuff that forms isn't holding on tightly and if the bird's got access to the same wounds, they'll worry them more than you will. Pierpont did and I had to make a collar to keep her from messing with it for awhile. Whenever I get a big scab on myself, I pick at it when it starts itching to do the very same thing. Yeah, it hurts a little bit, but so what? Picking the scab off is the only way to get it to shrink properly and stop itching.

Pidgey


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Pidgey said:


> As to debriding, I'm not certain what all the fuss is about. We're not talking about the kind of debriding where you physically scrape or scrub the exposed flesh until it bleeds, you know. It's more like picking boogers out of your nose.
> 
> Pidgey


I don't know about all the other "crap" that's going on with this thread, but I know Pidgey *always* has the birds best interest in mind,.......besides, after reading the above, you GOTTA love this man!! You certainly have a way about you Pidgey.......


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Lovebirds;190677but I know Pidgey [B said:


> always[/B] has the birds best interest in mind,.......besides, after reading the above, you GOTTA love this man!! You certainly have a way about you Pidgey.......


Or at least a real special way with words ...  

Terry


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Well, in my opinion, pain's certainly better than the final alternative. If pain were to be absolutely avoided, none of us would have been born. However, if you read Pigeonperson's underlying message, he's concerned for the bird. What he's read in Moxie's descriptions leads him to believe that there's still some serious infection left inside and it's going to kill the bird. The intensity of his argument is based completely on his concern for the bird. He wouldn't have been doing the things that he's been doing for pigeons for decades if he were actually mean-spirited. The offers that Pigeonperson has already made to fund a major portion of the venture needs to figure in before he's judged too sternly.

For my part, I'm also factoring in the fact that Moxie owes some attention to her education and circumstances. No matter how much I like her and enjoy supporting her new mission in life, she doesn't need to get too sucked into this family before she's even found her professional place in this world--we'll ruin her, trying to make her into our image. As soon as this particular drama is over (the bird) or even before that, she'll have found another one and her grades may slip another point. Of all the things I don't want on my conscience, that's a biggie.

If I only read the stuff from the thread about the bird, I'd be a little panicky too. If I hadn't called her up to ask A LOT of further questions, I wouldn't feel as good about this deal either.

Pidgey


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

I feel like I'm stepping into a mine field posting here, but here in the Bezerkeley
area, ferals are awarded anesthesia when being operated on whether private pay or a freebie. The last bird I rehabbed for a vet hospital in the area that works w/Lindsey Wildlife Center
was anesthetized, x-rayed, and then the bullet wound was irrigated and debrided because the feathers had been 'packed' into the wound from the bullet. The wing was wrapped, and the bird placed on Baytril, and was seen
again by the avian vet one week from the surgery to inspect for granulation.

In fact, I know of no birds undergoing surgery or debridement w/out anesthesia.
Perhaps there are regional differences, I do know this is true w/medical care
for humans. I'd rather be in the Northeast or California if anything serious happened to me on GP. Though I'm sure some of the intense 
Midwestern areas would get me in the correct hands. Probably opening another 'sore' here.

fp


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Yeah, they usually do anaesthetize for X-Rays for restraint purposes. That's right out of the book. The vet that did Pierpont's first surgery used to race pigeons himself. I guess he was pretty good at it and had (obviously) done an awful lot of his own vetting from those years. He quit the birds because he just didn't have the time in the end.

Pidgey


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Pidgey said:


> Yeah, they usually do anaesthetize for X-Rays for restraint purposes. That's right out of the book. The vet that did Pierpont's first surgery used to race pigeons himself. I guess he was pretty good at it and had (obviously) done an awful lot of his own vetting from those years. He quit the birds because he just didn't have the time in the end.
> 
> Pidgey


Yes, for xrays, though they anesthtize for other surgical procedures like debridement as well. Anyway, haven't heard any complaints.

fp


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

> In the books, anaesthesia is used far more for restraint and the control of shock than it is for one's comfort.


I read that too, somewhere. It might even be on this site. The recommendation was that painkillers were needed as well as anaesthesia, because pigeons feel pain when under anaesthetic. It worried me because I couldn't remember the vet bill mentioning painkillers when I had taken a pigeon in for surgery.

Cynthia


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

I'm glad the topic of anesthesia/pain relief was brought up, it certainly needed to be addressed. I wish we could all have avian vets like the one in Berkeley, quite advanced and knowledgable on pigeons too! What a scenario.

Thanks for sharing that fp.

Me thinks it is best to get on with the thread topic now.


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Well, I've never actually operated on a pigeon, per se. I've only stitched them up and then restitched them after clearing away that stuff I've been talking about. I just don't think that qualifies. To me, an operation means that you cut into tissue to get at something inside and I don't ever recall even cutting tissue. That, of course, is in response to other things mentioned above.

As to painkilling while under the anaesthesia, the one vet wanted to see Winter responding a little bit to certain things, like when he cut into the abdomen, or trimmed the oviduct after clamping. I've since read that the anaesthetic plane can be tricky to manage because they really can go too far under and can be lost. Since we HAVE seen that on here a time or two (and I can think of one in particular), I can imagine it to be more of an art than a science.

Let's face the facts--when you take a bird to the vet for a surgical procedure and it dies on the table, how likely is it that the blame is going to be put on the anaesthetic? Or, more appropriately, that the likelihood was that the anaesthetic plane got just a shade too deep? It's a rhetorical question--it can't be answered in the broad stroke. So, in the final tally in my mind at least, it's kinda' up to the artistry of the person doing it and nobody's perfect. 

Take a hypothetical case bird to two hypothetical vets: at one vet, the bird gets the full anaesthesia treatment and the bird doesn't wake up from the surgery; at the other, there's some mild kicking and flapping while under but the bird makes it. Which are you more concerned about, comfort as an absolute, or survival? Again, oddly enough, it's probably a rhetorical question and there is no absolute answer for all of us that we'll all agree on, at least as much because we can never quite shake the belief that there's no reason why one really cannot "have it all". We could probably argue on it til the cows come home and well beyond and never come to any all-agreed-upon conclusions. Or, worse, start playing the (sung to the tune of "My dog's... ) "My Vet's Better Than Youuuuur Vet... " game.

And beyond all that, there's the economics. Not every vet is going to give this level of service for a heavy discount or for free, unlimited. If you find one who will, then you're capable of putting them out of business. All that's required is for you to put your name out there enough that you start getting tons and tons of birds brought to you. The more you do, the more the word gets out and... voila'!--you're snowed under. It can become a rate equation, an exponential. I've no doubt that a hundred or a thousand pigeons fall a day in my town. It would be supremely unfair for me to drag them into my vets, even for simple advice, to the point of taking significant time away from their practices. Anyone care to try and establish a threshold time or cost on that? We've got a few vet-techs and at least one vet on here. How much does it cost an hour to run a practice on a single-case-at-a-time basis? You've usually got a receptionist/office manager as well as a vet-tech to pay; there's the fixed costs (salaries, utilities, advertising, property lease, debt service, etc.) as well as the variable costs (supplies, meds, taxes, etc.). I can just imagine it and I expect it's a lot worse than we'd like to believe. 

So, in order for a vet to be able to give your rescue the full court press and not charge you an arm or a leg (yeah, that pun was intended), that means that somebody who brought their dog or cat in is going to have to pay more than they were expecting. That's the facts of life when it comes to doing business with respect to this business. So, maybe here in the middle of the country, our dog and cat owners have less money to pay and so it's less anaesthesia, excuses and barbarity.

Pidgey


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Jimbo was a baby thrown from the nest last summer and found on the ground.
He had a sore in the front of the crop that was actually canker that had eaten 
through the crop. He was PUA (put under anesthesia) and the canker was
debrided and then both layers sewn back up. The recent gunshot pij (through a different vet @ a hospital that treats wildlife) was going to be PUA
for just the cleaning/irrigating of the wound, the x-ray was added to the list
since the bird was to be PUA anyway. The other gunshot wound that I had
was also PUA when worked on as well. So this would be three different places 
here. I don't know what the fellow in Castro Valley does as I tend to bring the
birds to different places dependant on circumstances. Since I know two other folks here
locally that pay out of their own pocket to have the surgery performed on the rescues, they have told me that thie birds
have been PUA as well. Cynthia, I can't speak to the issue of whether the birds were given pain management doses as well, and I wasn't aware of that aspect of their sensient awareness. The next time an opportunity presents,
I will inquire about this.

Perhaps if this is a topic of enough interest it should be it's own thread and this thread can go
back to the condition of Moxie's bird.

fp


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Actually.....I don't mind playing the "Your vet is better then mine game, as I KNOW the one fp goes to has to be better then the one we have, and yours is alot better too, Pidgey.

I think it is good to be informed about the avian vets that and that actually have treated lots of pigeons, as well as the ones that aren't, so we can compare them, even though we don't have access to them ourselves. It keeps me inspired to go LOOKING for a better one, knowing that they are out there. 

There are many variables that I'm sure we can figure out on our own, now lets get this topic on its own thread....anesthesia.


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Well I moved the posts as best as I can, so the topic is now open for discussion on its own thread.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Thank you for opening a new thread, Trees. Poor Moxie's threads seem to go off in all sorts of directions which must be so frustrating when you are looking for advice for a specific pigeon.

Having any animal anaesthesised worries me a lot. A few years ago I found a pigeon (Smokey) with thread injury and when I picked him up I promised him that I would take care of him and make him better. Because Helen's vet had been so good at removing thread that I couldn't even see I took it to the vet (not the one I deal with now). She decided that the thread was too deeply embedded in the flesh and that it would have to be removed under anaesthetic. My own view was that it should have a course of antibiotics first as there was so much infection but I bowed to the vet's superior knowledge.

Smokey had surgery in the morning so in the afternoon I telephoned to ask when I could collect him. Whoever answered the phone was completely offhand, and said "Oh, he died under anaesthetic". I was devastated and asked what he had died of. Again I got a glib, careless reply. "Oh, it could have been septic shock, blood loss, the effects of the anaesthetic"...

I think that if I had known more then about how much more dangerous it is for birds I might have made a different choice.

One reason that being anaesthesised is more dangerous for birds is that their respiratory system is designed in such a way that fresh air goes through their lungs when they breathe in and again when they breathe out. In terms of oxygen this is great, but when the "fresh air" is an anaesthetic gas it means that if there is a problem when air is breathed in the bird will get another dose - despite any action that the vet takes- when it breathes out again.

My vet told me that there is an anesthetic that is safer than others and this is probably what the avian specialists use on their valuable patients. However, small animal vets can't afford to keep it in stock for the occasional avian patients unless they charged $1200 each time it was used.

Cynthia


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

On Unie's enucleation, the only charge was for the Forane (Isoflurane):

http://www.rxmed.com/b.main/b2.phar...aphs/CPS- (General Monographs- F)/FORANE.html

He didn't charge for the actual surgery. Anyhow, reading that article linked above gives some idea of the dangers.

Pidgey


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

*Interesting comments in this thread.*

re anesthesia

Pidgey:


> I was aghast when my vet sewed Pierpont up without anaesthesia. I even asked about it, put him on the spot. He said, simply, that the risks weren't worth it. He also told me that they won't flinch when you're sewing up the crop but they'll get a little testy when you're sewing up the skin.


This makes good sense to me, because when one considers all the stuff pigeons need to eat to survive, such as dried pizza crust, split seeds and corn kernels with sharp corners and edges, why should the lining or the membrane of the crop, which also has to stretch every which way, be so sensitive to pokes and jabs before the stuff is soaked and softened? 

Sensitive outer skin alerts the bird to external parasites.

The skin surfaces of our body which are subject to the most friction, such as our shoulders, outer arms, fronts of legs, are less sensitive than the inner sides. The arteries are more protected by being on the less exposed parts of the body than the veins. 

In one of Tom Clancy's co-authored Op-Center book series, one character in a martial arts fight has been taught to take expected and anticipated slashing knife blows on the outer parts of the arm, where less lethal damage will occur. 

Nerves flll a certain function. Where they are not needed, why have them? Insects have limited nervous systems, since they use up valuable resources. Their carapaces or shells do not regenerate after suffering structural damage to their integrity. A short-lived insect uses available energy and food resources better in reproducing itself in great numbers. 

In the late 1970s I had nasal polyp surgery. ENT surgeon made a W-shaped incision between the left eye and the nose, one wing going over the eye, the middle high point of the incision at the inner corner of the eye, and the lower wing of the incision following the crease between the nose and the cheek (or maybe following the lower part of the eye socket). He went behind the eyeball. a few days later he said there was a bit of infection in the incision near the nose. Took a very fine needle to inject some antibiotic or some such medicine. I felt something squirt inside my nose. He had completely penetrated the wall of the nose. Didn't feel the needle going through the necrotic tissue or the pus, only the liquid splashing against the opposite wall of my nostril. So cutting through truly dead tissue should not be painful. 

Birds have a higher metabolic rate than humans and a higher inner body temperature. Supposedly they heal faster and recover faster than we would in certain injuries. They may feel more pain than humans in some similar areas, and less pain in others. I think it would depend on how useful, how important the pain was to the healing and recovery process. 

When I see an injured bird, I anthropomorphise some. I "know" what it really wants is a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with some time in a hammock in the shade, rather than those old dry tasteless seeds. I see it as having human needs and desires. It wants to drive a big car and run over hapless humans. It wants to dash into a Kindergarten classroom and see the panicky kids spill out of the windows and jam through the doors. And if someone disputes me on this ... well, let them attack my ideas. That's okay. I have a thick skin and am impervious to criticism. Only a heavy hammer will do the job. Or a dentist's drill. I have by-passed dental anesthesia once or twice when the dentist or dental student assured me it was okay. 

Perhaps pigeons really could communicate to us if they wished, in easy-to-understand language or signs, but till now they have assumed our intelligence is so limited that it is not worth the effort . 

Interesting comments in this thread.

Larry


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

There's a case in the book where the owner of a parrot left the room for half an hour only to come back and find that it had obviously gotten its foot stuck in a hanging toy and chewed the leg off within that 30 minutes. You really have to wonder.

Pidgey


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Ignorance, in my case, is definitely bliss!

Luckily, I read about the dangers of Panacur and Isofluane AFTER the fact. Otherwise, I probably would have really panicked and stressed myself out about Mr. Squeaks.

Due to the severity of his wing injury, he went under Isofluane twice and Panacur treatment, for round worms, once.

Either Mr. Squeaks was/is a VERY LUCKY bird OR my Avian Vet knew/knows what he was/is doing!

Conclusion: BOTH


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

> When I see an injured bird, I anthropomorphise some. I "know" what it really wants is a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with some time in a hammock in the shade, rather than those old dry tasteless seeds. I see it as having human needs and desires. It wants to drive a big car and run over hapless humans. It wants to dash into a Kindergarten classroom and see the panicky kids spill out of the windows and jam through the doors. And if someone disputes me on this ... well, let them attack my ideas. That's okay. I have a thick skin and am impervious to criticism. Only a heavy hammer will do the job. Or a dentist's drill. I have by-passed dental anesthesia once or twice when the dentist or dental student assured me it was okay.


LOL! Not on the subject of anaesthetics but thiis is from an e-mail I received yesterday:
*

This evening I asked a women why she let her dog attack the pigeons I was feeding - she informed me that Mayor Livingstone had instructed the public to kill pigeons. *

The pigeons are consulting with the seagulls on divebombing and poops. 

Cynthia


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Next time ask her if Mayor Livingdead asked her to jump off a building...would she?


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

I don't know how small 'small' needs to be before they don't see enough birds to warrant having the 'better' anesthesia on hand, certainly Dr. Spears regardless of size, is an avian vet exclusively and probably has what Cynthia
is mentioning:

http://www.medicalcenterforbirds.com/725968.html

I don't know that it is going to matter for Lindsey or Wildcare in that they are non-profits and their monetary goals are going to be different than private sector business ventures. The Vet Hospital though in Montclair village is a mixed practice and while having one or two avian vets on staff, I'll bet the bulk of the practice there is dogs and cats.

http://www.montclairvethospital.com/services/surgery.php

I have no idea how they address the issue of the kind of anesthesia they use
or if they have on hand the one more appropriate for birds. It does seem that the standard protocol here in general when dealing w/birds needing wound or other debridement, wing setting, toe removal, etc. is to PUA. There seems to be agreement on the topic of minimizing pain that is recognized professionally as being present and needing to minimize. If this smaller hospitals uses the one not as safe for the birds, then they would be using the same one for their private pay patients as their ferals, that much I am sure of. 

fp


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

*Re anesthesia during X-ray*

This was the main point I wanted to bring up in my previous post on this thread, but my brain got sidetracked.

I asked the German vet I took pigeon Osk-gurr to on March 20th regarding his seemingly paralyzed, drooping right wing, if he was going to use an anesthesia or something to calm down (or immobilize) Osk-gurr during the X-ray.

He said it was not necessary because he would place the pigeon on his back and the pigeon would stay still. Maybe he used a pillow (my guess) to hold the pigeon in place. I mentioned that Osk-gurr had just eaten quite a bit (I did not want the pigeon to aspirate food down his windpipe), but he did not seem worried, and we had a beautiful full-body x-ray.

I am in Antwerp now, trying to use a Flemish or Belgian keyboard lay-out on MS Windows. Periods hard to find, keys alll over the place, can´t can not find apostrophe, Qwerty is azerty, so do not think I will post much for a week.

Happy Easter to all.

Larry


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