Treating Birds at Your Veterinary Practice

Treating “exotic” pets such as birds is one way to differentiate your veterinary practice.  To treat exotic pets at your vet practice, you can usually take one of two paths. You may choose to transition to working as a specialist in exotics, or you may choose to offer exotic care as an additional service.  In Australia, one particularly popular form of exotic pet is birds. As such, expanding your services to treat birds could be a growth opportunity for your veterinary practice.

In addition to potentially opening up a new revenue stream for your practice, treating birds can also be an investment for the future of your veterinary practice. After all, birds tend to have fairly long lifespans – often longer than many other pets. That means you will have a longer relationship with these pets and their owners, creating greater stability by diminishing the need to attract new clients.

At Elite Fitout Solutions, we’re always interested in helping our clients explore new options for their practices. That’s why we’ve put together this blog – to take a closer look at what treating birds could mean for your veterinary practice.

What Do Birds Need?

Treating exotic species such as birds at your vet practice means taking care to consider their needs.  In order to treat birds, you may need to invest in additional veterinary equipment that you do not currently have in your practice. You’ll also need to ensure you have adequate space for this equipment in your practice.

Space-wise, it’s important to keep birds (who are often prey) away from predators such as cats, dogs, and even other birds. And this doesn’t just mean keeping the animals in different rooms. It also means ensuring that the scent of prey is not available to predators, and vice versa. Sensing the presence of predators can add further stress to prey animals in an already stressful situation.

Another important stress-minimiser is to insulate birds in your practice from loud noises. These sounds may include loud animal noises (such as barking dogs) and noisy equipment.

Your Practice Design & Layout

If you want to treat birds at your practice, but you also plan on continuing to treat other animals such as cats and dogs, it’s worth considering a separate entrance for your bird patients and their human owners. This will help to keep birds away from the scent and presence of predators, resulting in less-stressed birds.

Your practice should also be set up to easily incorporate any specialist equipment for treating birds. Adequate space and well-thought out workflows will help to ensure optimal efficiency and safety.

Separate recovery rooms with soundproofing and independent air flow are also important for keeping birds comfortable during their time at your practice. Ideally, birds should be isolated from any natural predators, including dogs, cats, and any larger birds that prey on smaller birds. This may take thoughtful planning, but the results are certainly worth it.

Contact Elite Today

Elite Fitout Solutions has years of experience helping veterinary practice owners refurbish or fitout their practices.

Contact us today to discuss your practice refurbishment or fitout.