ABSTRACT
It is often suggested that some 75% of ‘avian illness’ is related to poor husbandry, management, or nutrition. Often, owners ‘impulse purchase’ a ‘pretty bird’ and either have no knowledge as to how it should be kept or, at best, were advised by a poorly trained, part-time, school-aged assistant in a pet store. The clinician must not only find out how the bird is being kept and what it is currently being fed on, but he/she must also know how the species is normally kept and what it is normally fed in captivity, at the same time contrasting this information with how it would survive in the wild and what it would normally eat there.
