- Hi, my name is Matt Gosbell.
I'm part owner here
of the Melbourne bird veterinary hospital
where one of only two bird only clinics in Australia.
I've got a, what we call a membership in avian medicine
and I'm also presently doing a residency to
become a registered bird specialist here in Australia.
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When we first see a bird,
I will always weigh it and I'll also do a condition score.
The condition score tells me a little bit more
about the fat and whether the weight is adequate
or appropriate for the bird.
There's a number of different ways of scoring birds.
I score out of five,
five means we've got a fat bird.
That's overweight, it's bulging out the muscle.
So we've got excess fat
over the muscles over the chest area
but we also find fat deposits up around the neck
around the crop or in the belly.
So that's a bird that's overweight.
We see a lot
of budgets that are overweight because of sea diets.
Another name for a five out
of five would be a bird that's obese.
Then we get dragged down to the other end of the scale
a zero or, or a one or zero is pretty much a dead bird
or zero is where the cure bone is sticking it up.
There's no muscle and you can't feel or see any fat on
on the skin anywhere in the body.
So that would be a very poorly conditioned bird.
So despite its weight, that bird is in a lot of trouble
health wise. I always compare weight and condition scoring
because you can't sort of say a little quals
like these are always going to be right about
70 grams is going to be ideal weight.
Cause sometimes some
of these how great to be bigger birds than others.
So I always use the weight as well
as their condition score to understand
whether their weight and size is adequate.
A bird that's low in condition score or too high
in condition score that can tell me a little bit more
about what this bird might be suffering
in terms of disease or problems.
Certainly tells me about their diet
and if they've been fed too much
if their cholesterol might be too high or
if their own nutrition and health status is adequate
in terms of exercise and things like that as well
Three, would be a very good body condition score.
I'd probably find a lot of wild birds are more
likely to be consistent condition score too so slightly
on the lean side.
And that's a healthy way to be
for a bird that's trying to survive in the wild.
As a rule, I do recommend annual checks
at the very least of pet birds.
There's a number of different reasons for that.
Birds have a really good ability to hide disease.
It's a natural instinct to hide weakness
and hide disease, particularly parrot species.
They're what we call a prey species.
So the natural instinct is to show strength.
So these guys
when they show disease can actually be very sick.
So when people wait until they see a sick bird, then
by the time they get them to the vet, they can be very sick
and take a lot of work and effort to get back to life.
If people sit on them and say, Oh
it's only been sick for a day or two.
By the time they get here, harm,
sometimes they're almost dead
and we can't do anything about it.
A regular checkup can help us see
if anything is showing up over time.
And that may include regular blood tests
because then we can see patterns
and changes over a long period
of time of how that bird health is tracking.
The other benefit
of having regular checks is there's always new information
new treatments, and new things that are coming out
for managing birds and bird health.
So you might come to the vet one year
and get some advice about nutrition
and there might be some new information about nutrition.
That's come out during the course
of the year that can improve the quality
of life of that bird with new knowledge
and new information that can be added the following year
and changes made to their diet
which will ultimately improve their health and their life.