The avian heart is an amazing organ. Because birds are so athletic, they have relatively bigger hearts than that found in mammals. (Anyone who has shared a home with a bird knows about their big hearts!)

Not only is the heart bigger in birds, but it also beats a lot faster, relatively. For example the cardiac output (the blood flow out of the heart) is about seven times greater in a flying budgerigar (parakeet) than in a person or dog at maximum exercise level! Birds also must have a higher blood pressure than mammals to go along with that increased blood flow from the heart.

Anatomically, birds have four chambers to the heart, which is the same amount as mammals. They are: right and left atrium, and right and left ventricle.

You don’t hear much about birds and heart disease, but it does occur, although not as often as it occurs in mammals. Do birds get heart attacks? Well, that’s a complex question. Birds have an excellent blood supply to their heart muscle, as would be expected with an athletic animal. A heart attack occurs when, over time, the blood vessels that supply the blood, oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscles become obstructed to the point that the muscle cells begin dying.

The most common reason for obstruction to the heart’s blood vessels is from atherosclerosis, which is a buildup of plaques inside the blood vessels. This seems to occur most often in African grey parrots but can occur in any parrot species.

In people, it was discovered that there were Chlamydophila organisms (the primitive bacteria responsible for psittacosis) under some plaques in the blood vessels. This is an interesting discovery, and one that I have not heard diagnosed in birds, but one that warrants further study, since the connection between birds and psittacosis is well-known.
Other heart conditions are more common in older birds, including congestive heart failure. This occurs when the heart no longer acts as an effective pump, and the blood supply to the kidneys is often compromised.

In some cases, there is fluid in the sac around the heart itself, preventing it from pumping optimally. In other cases, the heart may become too muscular or too flabby, with both conditions causing ineffectual pumping. If the right side ventricle fails (or both ventricles are failing), then usually there is an enlarged liver, fluid found in the body tissues (called edema) and also excessive fluid in the body cavity. If the left ventricle fails, there is usually excess fluid in the lung tissue.

When performing a physical exam on a pet bird, your avian veterinarian will auscult (listen to with a stethoscope) to the heart, lungs and air sacs of your bird. The heart rate and rhythm will be evaluated.

Most birds have a really fast heart rate, and it is easier to evaluate when under anesthesia, as the rate often slows down. Some birds have an arrhythmia, meaning that the heart rhythm isn’t always the same, and may speed up or slow down based on breathing or for other reasons. Some birds may have a heart murmur, which means that there is abnormal blood flow in the heart and through one or more of the valves. This in itself doesn’t mean that the bird had a problem, but those identified with a heart murmur should be followed more closely and undergo a cardiac work-up either before a problem occurs or if signs of a heart problem begin to show up.

A cardiac work-up includes baseline blood tests, radiographs to evaluate the heart, lungs, air sacs, liver and other internal organs, and perhaps an echocardiogram or electrocardiogram or special dye studies of the heart and blood vessels. I also suggest testing for Chlamydophila, although testing is never 100 percent in a live bird.
Older birds, overweight birds and perhaps inbred birds are more likely to develop heart disease. I have seen a few cases of congenital or developmental heart disease, as well.

Foster Heart Health In Your Parrot What can we do to keep our birds’ hearts healthy? The obvious suggestion and one that also goes for owners, too, is to stay at a healthy weight. Have your bird consume food that is appropriate for its species, and make sure that it doesn’t over-consume calories. If necessary, provide foraging materials and toys to entice your pet bird to work to acquire some of its food. Discuss the appropriate foods to feed your pet bird with your avian vet. Get a good-quality gram scale, and weigh your pet birds on a weekly basis, at the same time of the day, to monitor for any changes.

If practical, allow your pet bird to fly for exercise. If flight is too dangerous, due to the risk of escape or injury, make sure that your bird has a large enough cage and toys to play with and also a playgym for supervised play time outside of the cage.

One technique to encourage weight loss is to provide a long ladder going from the playgym to the floor. When you walk by, place the pet bird on the floor in front of the ladder, and have it climb back up to the gym again and again. This ladder-climbing exercise helped my adopted overweight female budgie, Lucy, which had liver disease, to lose weight.

Get creative with play to keep your bird’s heart pumping faster on a regular basis. Practice wing flapping by dropping your hand while your parrot is perched on your hand. Always check with your avian vet before changing your bird’s diet, as it is possible for a sub clinically ill bird to become overtly sick from the stress of the dietary changes. Ditto about starting an exercise program if it has never exercised much in the past.

I recommend plant-derived omega fatty acids as a supplement for heart health. I take omega fatty acids for my heart, but they are fish-oil based; for birds, I recommend plant-based. A good combination of heart-healthy oils is this recipe: 24 ccs of corn oil and six ccs of either flax seed or safflower oil, dosed at 0.1 ml per 100 grams of body weight orally once a day. This was listed as a renal-specific (kidney) anti-inflammatory but as plant-derived omega fatty acids go, this should also work for heart health. Again, ask your avian vet for his or her recommendations regarding any supplements.

While heart disease isn’t among the most common medical problems in pet birds, it still can and does occur. Please do what you can to keep your bird in good health, including heart health.

Photo: Creatas

            When Allison told her mom that her guinea pig seemed to be scratching herself a lot, Allison was told to clean out Poppy’s cage. Young Allison put in a fresh bedding of cedar chips mixed with pine shavings. Poppy seemed to scratch less, but the improvement was short-lived. The scratching is now to the point of waking Allison up at night, and when Allison pets Poppy, she can feel scabbing along the cava’s back.

I do not recommend cedar shavings for any rodent or rabbit. It can be very irritating to the respiratory tract in these animals. The list of possible causes for pruritus, or itchiness, in guinea pigs is long, however three causes make up the lion’s share of these cases. While either of these three could be placed at the top of the list, I will start by focusing on sucking and/or chewing lice. In my clinical experience, I see this as the most common cause of pruritus in my guinea pig patients.

Lice are parasites. They can be found in many different species of animals from fish to birds to mammals, including humans. Most often, the type of lice involved with one type of animal is specific to that type of animal. In other words, lice from guinea pigs will not infest a human. In guinea pigs, these unattractive little creatures gain access from one guinea pig to another most commonly through direct contact, though lice can be transmitted through substrate such as bedding materials and also through food, especially bulk food.

Once these lice set up “house” on their hosts, they begin feeding by biting or sucking on the skin surface. As one might imagine, this is quite pruritic and irritating. Poppy’s scenario certainly fits with the possibility of an infection with lice.

Some people can see lice with their naked eye; I can not. I use clear plastic tape, placing it sticky side down in an itchy area of the pig’s skin. I then take the tape and stick it to a microscope slide and look at it under magnification for the presence of lice and/or their eggs.

Treatment for lice in guinea pigs involves using an oral or injectable medication two to four times, with two weeks between each treatment depending on the severity. The two-week interval allows the eggs to hatch and the lice killed before they lay new eggs. I also recommend treating the environment every four days by removing and replacing the substrate and spraying with a spray containing the same ingredient as the medication used to treat the guinea pig. This therapy should rid the guinea pig of lice.

Mange is another cause of pruritus. It is caused by mites. These are specifically sarcoptic mange mites that burrow into the guinea pig’s skin and cause irritation and pruritus. The pruritus can be quite intense, to the point where some patients go into seizures. Diagnosis for mange involves scrapping the skin and putting the scraped contents on a microscope slide and observing the mites and/or their eggs under magnification. These mites can not be seen with the naked eye.

Treatment for mange in guinea pigs is virtually identical to the treatment for lice.

The last of the “big three” possible causes for Poppy’s itchy skin in fungal infection of the skin. This is commonly referred to as ringworm, though it involves no worms. This skin disease is caused by a fungal organism that colonizes the skin and causes an inflammatory response that is intensely pruritic. We diagnose this disease by growing the fungus on a special growth medium specifically designed for this purpose. Treatment usually involves oral and topical therapy, including bathing with specific anti-fungal shampoo. Prognosis for recovery is good. An important point to note here is that guinea pigs can transfer ringworm fungus to people.

Poppy likely has one of these three. A visit to her veterinarian for diagnostic tests will lead to a diagnosis and a cure.

(Jeff Kahler is a veterinarian in Modesto, Calif. Questions can be submitted to Your Pet in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto CA 95352.)

 

 Kevin has a relatively large backyard pond.

 The pond begins with a two-tiered waterfall and small stream section that terminates into the main pond area, which is 6 feet deep and contains about 12,000 gallons of water. Kevin’s pond also contains three turtles and 12 large koi carp, which have been in the pond since it was built some 10 years ago. The carp, however, are no longer the fingerlings they used to be.

The koi are now 14 to 20 inches long. Over the past three to four weeks, Kevin has noticed his fish acting more lethargic. Normally, when Kevin comes out to the pond in the morning, all 12 koi are waiting at the top of the water with gulping mouths. That has not been the case lately. Kevin now finds all 12 spending most of their time in one area of the pond near the bottom.

Kevin has netted a few of his fish to get a closer look and has noticed that their fins are showing bright red where they are normally a much more pale color. Other than this change, he notes nothing else physically abnormal. He has done his research on the Internet but has not reached any conclusions. That’s why he’s asking for help.

There are signs we can perceive from some species – dogs, cat, birds and rabbits – that we can understand, such as pain in a particular area or obvious signs like vomiting, diarrhea and coughing. With fish, that is not so much the case.

There is one clue we have with Kevin’s fish. Their fins are turning red. I would advise Kevin to pick out one fish from his group, preferably the one that appears to be most affected, and bring it to a veterinarian with experience working with fish.

The fin changes do likely hold an answer to why the fish are not thriving. I generally recommend a fin clipping in a case like this one. We take a few small pieces of affected fins and prepare them for microscopic examination. This will allow us to see what might be causing the changes in the fins.

There are several possibilities, including bacterial disease, fungal infection, protozoal infection and parasites. A fin clipping should be very helpful in ferreting out the answer.

A pond-water analysis also should be done. There may be something awry with water quality that has allowed a problem to occur with the fish. A veterinarian familiar with fish medicine will be able to help with pond analysis as well. If Kevin cannot find a veterinarian, he might be able to find help both for his fish and his pond through a retailer specializing in ponds and/or koi carp. The retailer will not likely be able to do fin analysis but probably will have significant experience with pond management and diseases in koi carp. The key, as always, is to get started. It is extremely unlikely that Kevin’s fish will get better on their own.

(Jeff Kahler is a veterinarian in Modesto, Calif. Questions can be submitted to Your Pet in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto CA 95352.)