A Day in the Life
at the AEAC
Did you know that USA today reported in 2013 that Americans spent $815 million dollars on Valentine's Day presents for pets? Abba is certain some of that those presents should be coming her way.....
So what are good Valentine's Day presents for exotic pets? Chocolate is absolutely out, and flower arrangements might be toxic, even if rabbits and guinea pigs might want to eat them.
How about the new Oxbow baked treats in new flavors?
Or Labfeber's Nutriberries for birds?
Happy Valentine's Day!
Our wildlife rehabilitators are resting a bit from a busy summer, and gearing up for this spring's baby bird season. Right now we see them mostly with injured hawks and owls, with a smattering of geese and other birds (remember that beautiful Barn Owl??).
Chris and Liz Hatton gave us a report on last summer: this couple, plus their volunteer group, cared for over 550 orphaned or injured birds, representing a total of 60 different species! When asked what were the most unusual birds seen this, Chris replied "The pelican! Well, besides the non-native accidental visitor, the most unusual were the Bald Eagle and a couple of Least Bitterns."
The New Year is a time to look forward into the upcoming year with hope and wishes of good health & fortune. Some of us may already be dreaming and planning for a warm Summer vacation. It is also a time to reflect on the past year and take an inventory of what went well and what we could improve upon for the upcoming year. We here at Avian & Exotic Animal Clinic want to wish you a Very Happy New Years and to share with you some of our New Year's resolutions.
Here are some resolutions from our friends at EARPS (these guys and many others are looking for homes in 2015!):
As the days grow colder remember to bring animals inside if you can and be sure to check your outdoor animals for signs of frostbite and ensure they have access to food and un-frozen water. Happy New Year!
Again, we said farewell to another overseas visitor! Dr. Frank Ruiz Acuña, a veterinarian from Spain, stayed with us for 3 months and we will miss him very much! Here's what he had to say about his visit: 
I arrived 3 months ago and it seems that it was yesterday. During these 3 months, I have lived with my "Indy Family" (it's how I call them) and I have checked their love and dedication for all the animals. They pamper to their client's pets as if they were their own. Since the first day, I have seen many cases and surgeries very interesting like a macaque spay, a cockatoo endoscopy and spay, rabbit gastrotomies and enteroctomies, as well as a lot of spay/neutered of many different species. Also, I have learnt new anestesia protocols, calculate CRI, extract blood from other bodyzones depending on the animal and a lot of useful stuff. It has also been very exciting to be in contact with wildlife animals, some animals that I have never treated before like pelican, hawks, owl, different kinds of small birds, turtles that have had the opportunity to be treated in the clinic. I only can say "Thank you so much" for this great experience and I hope to come back soon!
Here is a message from Dr. Sergio Rodríguez from Spain, who spent some time as an observer here with us:
I've been here just for a month, maybe it is a very little period of time but also enough for seeing the wonderful way of working they have. It's been the first time I've seen CRIs of ketamine in small mammals and avian species, and the awesome protocols of anesthesia and analgesia they use. The rabbits recovered very fast from the anesthesia and the surgery (even gastrostomies) and also started to eating very quickly after that. I also saw a very interesting surgery in a moluccan cockatoo with reproductive disorders (spaying, cloacopexy and cloacoplasty in the same surgery) and many many surgeries in rats (unusual pet in Spain but increasingly popular). I've learnt many things here and the staff is been always very kind with my from the technicians until the doctors so I've to say thanks to all them for this experience!
The staff of the Avian and Exotic Animal Clinic wishes you a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and families. The clinic will be closed on Thursday and Friday, but will reopen at 8 AM on Saturday. As always, if you have an emergency, please call the clinic at 317-879-8633 for instructions on how to reach the doctor on call. As much as we love our patients, we hope not to see anyone until Saturday.
One of our clients is looking for homes for some gorgeous New Zealand rescues! Read more about them here: Greetings!
We have ten New Zealand bunnies available for immediate adoption or fostering! As you can see on the attached flyer, they're all as cute as can be.
We rescued mom on Memorial Day, nursed her back to health with the intent on finding a great home for her and she surprised us a few weeks later with lots of baby bunnies! A Fluffle of bunnies! They've had excellent care in our home, and excellent vet care at Avian & Exotic Animal Clinic in Indianapolis. We have seven girls and three boys, all spayed / neutered.
We are currently taking care of all ten in six enclosures in our living room and are desperate to adopt them out as soon as possible!
We have attached a flyer regarding the bunnies. We would GREATLY appreciate it if you would consider taking one, several, or all of them!
Note that these are indoor (only) pet bunnies, currently housed in circle enclosures. We have singles and paired bunnies, with one group of three girls together.
Also available are their supplies, including, when possible, their circle enclosures.
We ask that you kindly consider posting their flyer and info on your website and sharing it with your members and friends. Additional information and photos can be found on their Facebook page, "Ten Bunny Tales" - https://www.facebook.com/TenBunnyTales
Our contact info is on the flyer and listed below.
Thank you very much for your consideration!
Our Halloween Exotic Pet Costume Contest is now over and the votes have been tallied! This year we had a tie for first runner up! Our two first runner up winners are:
And our first place Grand Prize goes to:
Congrats to our winners! You may stop in the clinic at any time to claim your prize! Have a look at all of our other entrants, everyone did a great job!
Happy Halloween!
The American Veterinary Medical Association has published some very interesting pet statistics: follow this link to find out how much money Americans spend on their PETS for Halloween!
Don't forget that the advice about keeping dogs and cats away from the candy bowl applies to exotic pets, too. Unfortunately, some rabbits, ferrets, rats and other exotic pets will go for the chocolate. With luck, we won't see a sudden surge in GI problems on November 1rst. Have a fun and safe holiday.
**WARNING** There are some surgical photos in this post! Chewy is a 6 year old neutered male rabbit whose owners brought him in because he just wasn’t acting normally. He seemed to be eating less and losing some weight. On exam, the doctor noticed that his bladder seemed to be very painful so she recommended having some x-rays taken. As you can see, something very unusual popped up!
The doctor recommended surgery to try to remove the firm object which appears to be in his bladder.
Chewy is now anesthetized and the technician is administered a local block along the incision site to help minimize discomfort. It's marked in purple so the surgeon knows what area was blocked.
This is Chewy's bladder which is thicker than normal, and definitely contains some kind of hard object.
There's only one way to get this mysterious object out! An incision is made into the bladder, but it's too small to get the object out. The object appears to be "stuck" to the wall of the bladder.
After extending the incision a bit, the object finally comes into view-and it looks just like the object on the radiograph.
After removing the oddly-shaped urolith (bladder stone), the bladder was flushed carefully and sutured after taking samples for testing, and the abdominal wall closed. Chewy went home feeling much better that evening. Here is the urolith all cleaned up. Parts were sent off for testing to see what kind of material it’s composed of. The rest went home with the owner as a souvenir!
This week we say goodbye to Dr. Filomena Mazzone from Italy who spend a few weeks with us getting to know the clinic, our clients, and clinic mascot Abba. We asked her to give us a report on her experiences and this is what she said: 
"During two weeks of my internship I saw a lot of different exotic species, reptiles, parrots, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs and full sized pigs. Two interesting surgeries were in two parrots, one for the reproductive tract and another for a cloacal mass. The preparation of these surgeries was interesting for all of the details: monitoring the temperature, heart rate, breathing, and other things. I saw neutering of rats and guinea pigs for the first time. Finally I followed the very interesting case of a ferret with urethral obstruction with stones. After placing a catheter, the ferret had a urethrostomy. This has been a very important experience for my future work with exotic animals. All of the doctors and staff have been very kind, and thank you very much!"
This is Little B, a young chicken who took a bad step and broke her leg running around the yard. This radiograph shows two interesting things. Little B has a broken femur, which is circled in red. It also appears that she is about to lay an egg! She promptly laid it later that night.
This fracture is not likely to heal well on it's own, so the doctors put a pin through the broken fragments to line them up again, and connected it all together on the outside of the body with an "external fixator". In this picture Little B is sporting her fancy external fixator.
The next day she was able to bear a little weight on that leg. We will be seeing her again to check the fixator and make sure the bone is healing well. Eventually, we will remove the pin and the fixtor. With luck, it should all heal in a few weeks and she will be back out with her flock!
Did you know rabbits get dental disease? It's very unique and different from the kinds of dental disease that other animals, such as dogs and cats, can get.
Unlike dogs/cats (and us), the teeth of rabbits continue to grow throughout the life of the rabbit. They are kept at the proper length and shape by the action of the teeth wearing against each other. When anything interferes with the ability of the teeth to wear normally, teeth actually overgrow, and can cause a host of problems, such as inability to eat, and pain due to laceration of soft tissues. Some rabbits are unlucky enough to be born with congenital jaw malformations that prevent the incisors from wearing against each other normally.
While these teeth can be trimmed back to a more reasonable length, they will only continue to regrow.
Fortunately, rabbits do not absolutely have to have incisors to eat. They need the incisors to cut large food items into smaller pieces, or to cut growing good such as grass or weeds. But they aren't required to eat hay, pellets, and smaller bits of greens, which are crushed with the sharp premolars and molars (also called cheek teeth).. For this reason, incisor extraction is a great option that will prevent the need for frequent re-trimming. Extraction is done under general anesthesia with several kinds of medication to control any discomfort.
Here is our rabbit after extraction. He was eating normally within the next few days.
This summer, high school student Sara Lennox completed an interesting school project for the Frankfort Parks Department. With the help of the primate keepers at the Indianapolis Zoo, Sara designed an enrichment program for the park's lemur, Jill. Enrichment is an important part of exotic animal care. Enrichment is provision of 
interesting and stimulating things to do while in captivity, for example foraging for food, instead of just getting it out of a bowl. Thanks to lots of help from the zoo folks and parks department employees and volunteers, Jill now has plenty to do in her enclosure, including searching for food in unusual places. It's fun for Jill, and entertaining for park visitors as well.
To read Sara's report on how to enrich a lemur, click here.
This week will be an exciting one for avian veterinarians from all over the world-The Association of Avian Veterinarians Conference in New Orleans. Drs. Lennox and Lee will participate in labs and lectures, with Dr. Lee presenting her first avian lecture at an international conference
Late summer/early fall is always time for the big exotic animal conferences. This year, the Association of Avian Veterinarians (AAV) will meet in New Orleans for lectures, master classes and laboratories all designed to keep avian veterinarians up to date on the latest in avian medicine and surgery. Dr. Lee gives her first presentation at a large exotic conference: "A Review of Cloacal Diseases in Birds". If you see Dr. Lee this month, ask her to practice a part of her presentation for you! Dr. Lennox will teach and present a lab as well, but really looks forward to lots of learning.
In October the Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians will meet with the zoo and reptile/amphibian group for a joint conference in Orlando. Again, it will be a great time for us to catch up with colleagues from all over the world, and soak up some great knowledge to take back home.
For more information, go to www.aav.org and www.aemv.org. Hit the conference links!
The staff of the Avian and Exotic Animal Clinic would like to introduce Dr. Samantha Swisher! Dr. Swisher graduated from Tufts Cummings University School of Veterinary Medicine, and 
completed two internship before joining our staff. She comes well prepared to begin her two year Exotic Companion Mammal residency, which is the next step to becoming a board-certified specialist. You can learn more about Dr. Swisher on our staff page.
Exotic pet ownership and veterinary care were the focus of a recent AVMA article! Dr. Lennox and many other colleagues were featured in this article from this months Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). Be sure to click this link to read the article and see a few pictures from the clinic!
Dr. Goldstein will be finishing her one year avian and exotic animal internship with us next week. We will really miss her exuberant personality and positive attitude! Before she leaves, she wanted to share the following:
So long until we meet again, AEAC! It has been an exciting and stimulating intern year. I learned so much from all of the doctors and staff and I can’t wait to take my skills to Pittsburgh. With the support of everyone at the clinic, I have improved my surgical technique and developed the ability to clinically evaluate patients, recommend and perform diagnostic tests and manage multiple cases at our busy exotics practice. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the clientele at AEAC. We have such devoted owners that are 
invested in their pets’ care, which allowed me to grow as a doctor and perform high quality medicine. Before starting this internship, I had never asked a bird to step-up or syringe fed a rabbit. With our patient and kind staff, the guidance of Dr. Lennox and Dr. Lee, 
and our caring owners, I gained invaluable experience in working with exotics that I will utilize for the rest of my career. I could not be more grateful to have met and worked with all of you and I will miss you all very much. Enjoy the summer and give Dr. Swisher, the new exotic mammal resident, a warm welcome to the team in July!
This month Dr. Lennox was awarded another exotic animal specialty title, from the European College of Zoological Medicine, in the category Small Mammals. This is Dr. Lennox's third exotic animal medicine specialty degree. Similar to the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP), this specialty focuses on improving the quality of exotic animal medicine and surgery:
"The European College of Zoological Medicine was established to make further progress in research and practice to benefit health and well-being of free-ranging and captive non-domesticated animals. The ECZM invests efforts to establish and maintain high standards of training that will lead to recognition as European Veterinary Specialist in Zoological Medicine. Certification increases prestige of the profession and results in more competent zoological veterinary medicine service to associated institutions and public parties/entities. "
For more information, see: http://www.eczm.eu/public/introduction.asp and www.abvp.com
If you'd like to read more about exotic animal medicine specialties, go here
