The day began with a tour. We followed Mathias around while he explained every bird, their habitats, their reproductive strategies and success/failures, the diseases associated, their behaviors, etc. He knows so much and spoke such wonderful English, it was a blessing being able to learn from him! This place has endless amounts of birds and the full tour took a couple hours to complete with the amount of information Mathias provided us!
(I love birds; this beautiful male was my favorite today)After the tour we went into the hospital portion of the facilities. First he walked us through a couple of endoscopies on Blue and Gold Macaws. We asked him questions on anesthesia protocol and why he prefers masking isoflurane versus using ET tubes. He said that ET tubes can result in irritation so he prefers to control the gas with a mask (made out of a giant coke bottle I might add). The macaws had an unusual biochemistry but otherwise seemed in good health so he wanted to evaluate the livers. While scoping, we observed unusually thick air sac membranes which were unusually vascularized and covered in a mucus-like substance. The frustrating thing is that they do not have an x-ray machine so now the birds need to be sent into town for radiographs. While we did not get results of the case, it was very interesting to see my first bird endoscopy!
(Mathias and the endoscopy)After this, a bird "emergency" from the park was brought into the hospital for a broken wing. Mathias said that since the toucanet (smaller breed of toucan, very beautiful) was very depressed, it is likely that the broken wing is a secondary issue. He could have been so weak that he fell off a branch or that he cold not protect himself from his mean cagemates which tend to pester the ill. Birds have bullies too! While we out the bird in an oxygen cage to stabilize we went and looked at blood smears and gram stains of previous cases. This was really neat! In vet school you learn that avian blood looks very different from that of the dogs and cats that I am used to because they have nucleated red blood cells! If you know anything about RBCs than you understand how unusual that is! We also saw lots of unusual bacteria and protozoans that caused sudden death in cases Mathias had witnessed recently. I am taking Bacteriology, Pathology, Parasitology and Clinical Chemistry all next year so to be honest when he asked us questions we all looked around like sheep waiting to follow someone's lead. It was the quietest I have ever been (rare, very rare). While we may not have understood or been able to contribute to the talk, it actually got me excited for classes this fall! I love summer, don't get me wrong, but I also love vet school and can't wait to learn more for my career!
(Necropsy, so awesome...be thankful I didn't chose the photo where the head was cut in half!)Well sadly, the toucanet did not survive. As upsetting as it is to lose an animal, it gave us an opportunity to learn more. We were able to observe a necropsy on the poor thing. It was so interesting! Avian anatomy is unique and really fun to observe. Necropsies are very important especially for organizations such as zoos (which the bird park is classified under). They must report the cause of death for every case. Sometimes this can be incredibly difficult but in today's case the cause was discovered; foreign body. Some thin strips of an unknown origin had perforated the bird's stomach and intestines, resulting in a lot of bacteria. Clearly Mathias was correct, the wing was a secondary issue. This went all the way to the end of the day but Mathias made sure to get our contact information (emails and Facebook names haha) in order to keep in touch, he made sure to emphasize that in the future if we ever have questions with avian medicine to not hesitate and ask him. He is such a nice man, another great friend to add the list from this trip.
Real quick, the funniest part of the day occurred on the bus. The buses are always packed and if you get a seat, you don't want to move. They aren't comfortable but they are better than being awkwardly pushed against people, poles and backpacks. Well a young man had been sitting when an older man got on the bus and asked him to move so he could sit. It was obvious the kid didn't want to move. I am all about respecting your elders, but to be honest, I don't blame him! Anyways, what happened next was so bizarre, I couldn't help but literally laugh out loud. The man opened up his bag and just started handing the guy food. 1 orange, then another until he had to juggle about 5 in his hands, the kid starts laughing but says "thank you, it's not necessary" to the old man. The man just smiled and shared his hand and then handed him more. This time, husks of corn. The guy tried to hand them off to Rica and I but we couldn't stop laughing even to say "no". Just so you can picture the seen, the bus was crowded and hitting every bump possible. The young guy was trying to put them away in his bag but that is dangerous while not holding on. He was running into people and dropping things left and right. Rica and I tried to help but it just made things more awkward because neither of them spoke English. I have never witnessed such an awkwardly amazing public display. We got off the bus wondering out loud how much that older man had in his bag. Mary Poppins would have been impressed.
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