- Hey guys, Jamieleigh here from bird tricks
and I have a really fun activity that we're doing today.
Maybe not so fun for the parrot that's going to be involved,
but I'm hoping that it's super educational
and convinces a lot of you guys
to do the same with your birds at home.
(Upbeat music)
What I'm talking about is micro chipping your parrot.
Now this is something that I've done with my entire flock
from a small as my 100 gram Sun conures
all the way up to my 950 gram macaws.
Now, today we got special permission to actually
videotape this procedure being done
kind of say, procedure lightly.
You can put your bird under for this,
say if you're doing a full exam
and maybe it's going to be kind of traumatic
or you can choose not to put your bird under
because really what's all going in
is just this tiny little microchip
which is about the size of a grain of rice
and it's going into the chest muscle.
So this is something that's really, really interesting.
And I want to talk and clarify a few things
about the microchip before we get started
and you guys get to see what this looks like.
Number one, a microchip is not a GPS
or a transmitting device.
You can not track your bird through a microchip.
The main premise of a microchip is for identification.
So, if a bird gets stolen, it can have its leg band
cut off in an attempt to, for those people to conceal
that they stole that actual bird.
So for you to go and prove that that bird is actually yours
simply hold up a microchip reader.
And it shows that unique microchip number
with its registration to you.
So this is a great way to protect your birds
from theft and get them back.
say, if it's not even theft, if your bird just
happens to get out, somebody finds it, turns it in.
They can scan that bird and know that it belongs to you.
So that is the purpose of a microchip.
Now I can't wait to show you guys what this looks like
because it's a fairly easy non-invasive procedure
that I think most pet owners don't understand.
And if they did it they would probably do it.
So let's go.
One last thing I forgot to mention is there are
a few different brands since we started microchipping
our own parrots out there on the market.
Now we use avid.
It was one of the very first microchip brands out there.
We also got ourselves an avid chip reader.
Why the heck did we do that?
We were told not to do that, not to worry about it
but we ended up in a lot of circumstances where
we were very glad that we had our own reader.
You may not need to go to that full effect,
but I do highly recommend it just because if people
use a different brand they cannot scan universally.
So if you're using a home again brand and I have avid,
my reader will not work for your chip and vice versa.
Also, there are some readers or chips out there
that do cost an annual fee.
Avid is not one of them.
So I highly recommend that and make sure you get your
own reader just so that you never have to think about it.
If you need to show up at somebody's house
or if you need to show up at a rescuer or a vet's office
to prove that that bird is yours.
I wouldn't want the stress of thinking,
Do they have the right reader?
- So this here is the microchip that we use in Australia.
It's an ISO market chip.
So there's 15 numbers on the microchip.
They come in a small needle like this.
The microchip will be at the end of the needle
inside the package there.
And we use this scanner to get the number.
So if we do that beeps and it has the number
and those two numbers should match.
This number then goes on a database, which is connected
to the client and the client's name and their address.
(Indistinct)
So these little guys, when we microchip in a thing
under a hundred grams, I definitely offer a non acidic
but the microchips, these days are getting so small
that I find that I can easily microchip a bird larger
than a hundred grams.
And I find that the birds don't
or they tolerate it just as much
as basic antibiotic injections.
So, the reaction that they give me
even though the chip is a larger implant is not
much different from an antibiotic.
So I don't believe that it's worth the stress
of an anesthetic for those birds.
For these little birds I always give clients
the option of a quick anesthetic
because it is still a large injection.
(Indistinct)
So here we are just anesthetizing this little guy
for his microchip.
It's a very quick anesthetic, but generally
if I get less movement, I'm less likely to get
any significant bruising.
And that's the main sort of issue I get
with putting microchip implants in it's a bit of bruising
because it's a quick anesthetic.
We just use a quick mask.
We're not going to incubate this little guy.
So we're going into the left breast area.
I prefer to do these as shallow injections.
A chip just goes on this little implanter.
You can just see the chip in the end there.
So it's a small rice grain size
Even though these chips are made to be quite sticky.
I do prefer to go down the bird rather than go up just
in case the chip sort of moves out of the hole.
Just a shallow muscle.
And just put the implant down
And a little bit of bleeding.
I just hold it in place for a little bit.
We always double check and make sure the chip reads.
And that's the read.
Again just compare it against the number.
And that's it.
He'll wake up very quickly from the anesthetic
so it's just a gas.
We'll just hold this on. So it doesn't
Bruise.
- So we can now...
- Yeah.
- I liked the kind of nice time birds awake.
If they're used to human contact
and things in my hands, they keep warm
and they kind of a little bit less sort of stressed.
If it's more a wild bird, I will pop them
in a hot box in sort of a more dark environment
so they can wake up on sort of gradually by themselves.
But once he's sort of more fully awake we'll just.
There he goes.
It just helps they have an excitable phase often, especially
if they're just guest down without a pre sedative
and they can get a little bit sort of disorientated
and excited.
So just gently holding these tiny birds can just
help them wake up a little bit better.
Hello
Are you now ready to go back, hang on.
(Indistinct)
So when we microchip larger birds,
the first procedure is firstly make sure the microchip works
and the numbers all match
and then just make sure the bird hasn't already
been microchipped in the past.
Now I prefer to go down into the muscle
get a little bit of alcohol just to clean the area
and that helps keep the feathers away as well.
The microchips are quite small.
They are non irritant.
The biggest issue really is just the size of the needle.
So with the bird restraint,
we just gently
I just gently put this on. These needles are fairly sharp.
So I just put gentle pressure and gentle pressure.
Just gently push them into place.
Keep them fairly shallow.
Once it's in place
put the needle in,
check the chip
so the chip's working.
Always a little bit of blood
and that's just simply because of the size of the needle.
And again, there's more chance
of bleeding going down the muscle than up the muscle.
I would just put a little bit of pressure for a time.
I find I get much much less bleed
bleeding if the bird's just not flapping.
So if they're restrained properly
and they're not flexing those muscles,
I get much less sort of bruising and much less complication
that you can see the bird wasn't sort of fazed by that.
Still feeling nice and relaxed.
That was just a tiny bit of blood spot and that was it.
We just leave it alone and just gently put the bird back
in the cage and they perch in the cage, then generally it's
they don't have any ongoing sort of issues.
Keep them quiet after handling for about
sort of 12 24 hours.
But that's the case, no matter what happens
I always suggest that when any bird gets injections
or anything done at the vet. And we put him back.
There we go. That wasn't that bad.
There we go.
She's beautiful.
(Gentle music)