Burge Bird Services is a 100% avian veterinary hospital serving the Kansas City area. Burge Bird Rescue is our nonprofit bird rescue, adoption, and sanctuary program. Between our practice, patients and birds in the rescue, there is a never ending supply of birds that need to be worked on, with over 100 birds in our rescue at all times. We see a wide variety of species from finches to parrots, non-native wild birds like pigeons and sparrows, domestic ducks, and backyard poultry. Students are exposed to every aspect of avian practice depending upon our caseload during their visit.
Ours is a solo practice with 7 part-time support staff. We do not have any licensed vet techs, but our veterinary assistants have from 10 to 20 years of avian experience. We have Isoflurane anesthesia, an Ellmann electrosurgical unit, and rigid and flexible endoscopy equipment. We use the digital radiography equipment at the nearby small animal practice. Each room of our building is devoted to a different population or purpose. We have a hospital room with brooders and cages for birds needing daily treatments by the vet or techs. There is a room for boarding, another for birds for adoption, two rooms for unadoptable birds in the sanctuary, and one for outdoor birds or quarantine. There are also two secure outdoor pens for waterfowl and poultry.
We have a collection of the major avian texts and journals, and the student is frequently directed to research diseases and procedures when not occupied with handling birds.
For the first couple of days, the student will mostly be shadowing the vet during all appointments, procedures, and surgeries. Between appointments, s/he will be learning from the techs about identification of species and appropriate diets and husbandry, and then how to capture, restrain, examine, and trim species from finches to macaws, using the birds in our rescue and sanctuary. Within 3 days the student will take over assisting in the exam room with client owned birds. Depending upon our case load, students will learn how to administer injections by various routes, draw blood, pass feeding tubes into the crop, and other minor procedures. During surgery, the student will intubate the patient and monitor anesthesia, with a clear view of everything being done. Sometimes we are able to allow a student to perform a minor surgical procedure, such as a skin biopsy or small mass removal, on one of our rescue birds.
Our hospital is open 39 hours a week over 6 days, and the student is usually to be here during all of those hours, and is welcome to come in for any after hours emergencies we might see. We are also on good terms with the local wildlife rehabilitation facility, where students can spend free afternoons observing or helping with rehabbing thousands of animals. There are also several large dog and cat shelters in our area where students are welcome to tour and observe when not needed at our hospital.
By the end of two weeks, the student will be able to identify, capture, restrain, examine, trim wings, nails, and beaks, administer IM and SQ injections, draw blood from the jugular, administer tube feedings, manage anesthesia, and identify problems with diet or husbandry for a wide variety of commonly kept pet bird species and some wild birds.
Local hotels are available.