Continued from page 1Stock management protocols are dictated by productivity parameters
Stated in simpler terms, management efforts are influenced greatly by desired production parameters. Declining productivity is a symptom of avicultural disease. Therefore, declining productivity should be followed by diagnostic evaluation by the aviculturalist as well as their attending veterinarian and a management plan to improve production and monitor that improvement. New parameters for productivity evaluation will be developed based on changes in the goals and needs of the aviculturalist. These new parameters in turn lead to new or changed management protocols. This pattern should continue to feed itself and progress into a more sophisticated avicultural medical management effort.
Productivity success will be best achieved by restriction to one or a few taxonomic orders or genera
Commercial poultry, dairy, swine, beef and sheep farms accomplish best success when focusing on their own respective species only. Very few large production oriented farms can be found that have multiple species of animals being produced in the same location. This principle should hold true in psittacine bird breeding efforts as well. Extremely varying disease susceptibilities, management requirements and nutritional needs will interject more variables into the operation from which failure or complications can rise. Aviculturalists who specialize in species from one continent of origin or one taxonomic genus or family are becoming more common with the passage of time and the progressively declining availability of imported breeding stock. Aviculturists who have focused on macaws should be expected to reach a higher level of production success.
Preventative medicine is more desirable and economical than symptomatic medicine
Tradition states, 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.' With very few exceptions, it will be less costly to establish the preventative mechanism to avoid disease than to treat it medically. Cost must be defined in cost and labor terms and be weighed in view of perceived risk to the flock. Disease prevention through improved management efforts should be a common goal for both the aviculturalist as well as the attending veterinarian. As mentioned earlier, however, cost must be justified.
Most flock diseases are a symptom of management flaws and are not a viable avicultural diagnosis unto themselves
Both the aviculturalist as well as their attending veterinarian must be convinced that the conventional companion animal approach focused on diagnosis, treatment and control of clinical disease as the sole objective is incomplete in an avicultural medical management effort. This approach frequently fails to recognize the strong relationship between management and disease. Veterinarians and aviculturalists must seek answers above and beyond the standard pet bird diagnoses - again, with the betterment of the flock in mind. Once an individual disease or cluster of diagnoses has been established, attention should be focused on the attempt to locate the management links that could have potentially set the stage for the disease to be manifested. Failure to view most disease in this manner will result in failure to identify potential management or husbandry flaws. This failure locks the veterinarian and aviculturalist into a 'symptomatic' treatment regimen - addressing the disease but ignoring or down-playing the potential causes for the development of disease.
Short-term goals must be prioritized and realized to achieve long-term goals
Without the ability to achieve the short-term goals desired by the aviculturalist, progression to newer and further reaching goals is inhibited. Immediate financial or emotional return is a frequently desired goal by the aviculturalist. A classic example of a short-term goal may include an outbreak of disease in the nursery or the breeding aviary with the immediate cessation of mortality and morbidity the targeted goal. Inability to achieve some degree of success as measured by the aviculturalists' standards will directly inhibit progression towards a long-term goal of preventative medical management effort to avoid recurrence of that type of disease problem in the future.
Drugs are not a substitute for sound management
Antibiotic usage on an empirical basis in psittacine flock management should be regarded in the same light as trying to prevent infection with antibiotics following surgery with poor sterile technique. Any persistent or cyclical drug therapy warrants careful evaluation for an underlying source of the problem. Sound management has never been founded on drug therapy alone. An idealistic, but necessary goal in management is to use as little drug therapy as is necessary to meet production goals. Regular antibiotic usage on a maintenance or empirical flock basis is a currently widespread avicultural problem. The result is an ever-increasing spiral of background bacterial resistance and subclinical disease. Improved management in the vast majority of instances will result in less demand for drug therapy on an empirical basis. Background management flaws and their resultant stresses to the birds are frequently an overlooked primary problem.
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