Dierenarts Nouki

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Nederland
The Hague
Dierenarts Nouki

Gezelschapsdierenarts met een passie voor bijzondere dieren, met name vogels.

25/09/2024

This is hard to post, but representation matters so I do.

Today I went to work after two months of 'doing nothing'. Of course, I have been resting and healing from what appears to be a burnout, but it feels that way.

Picture 1 is my face after crying my eyeballs out because I was death tired after the drive up and down, and one cup of coffee with colleagues. This means it will take months before I will be able to work more than a few cases a day. That realization devastates me.

Not just because I feel bad for all the pets who need help, but also because I LOVE this work. I do absolutely not enjoy sitting at home, tending to hobby's, resting. I love helping animals and owners. I love the thrill of a busy working day. I miss my patients 😭 But it appears that loving something is not enough. I will have to take care of my body and mind before I can help anyone else.

Many veterinarians and vet techs face these kind of challenges, especially in the Netherlands. We want to help all the animals in need, but we are with too few. We compromise our own health in small portions because we see suffering that we can alleviate in that moment. But we all have a breaking point. I hope this post reminds my colleagues to take care of themselves and invest in their health (treat yourself!).

If you are a pet owner, treat your veterinary staff with compassion. We know we are running late, because we helped too many patients. We know prices are high because of inflation and high demand. We know you are worried sick. But we do absolutely everything we can. Believe us.

👉 Swipe for a happy picture of me cuddling Snowy the practice hamster, who softened the blow today ☺️

20/08/2024

Today's post is not about the cute baby Amazon, but about me.
Some of you may have already missed me, and more of you unfortunately will in the next weeks to months.

Due to private reasons, I am unable to work right now. I hope to ease back into it as soon as I can because I LOVE helping exotic and 'regular' animals with my amazing coworkers. I am urgently aware of the shortage of vets in general and of exotic animal vets specifically. Do know that I would have been back yesterday if I could.

In the meantime, be nice to my colleagues for me ❤️ They have to explain to everyone why their per cannot receive the much needed veterinary care and delivering bad news all day is hard. They would much rather help you, too!

Hopefully I will be able to help your pets again soon.
With love, Nouki

13/07/2024

See the fluids coming out of Jako's nose? That can't be good, right?! 😱

Parrots often present to me with sneezing and discharge from the nostrils. Often, an infection is the cause.
However, in about 50% of the time, this is not due to illness. A lot of parrots were built for high humidity environments (aka rainforest), and our houses are just too dry. Sometimes also too cold.

In Jako's case, this happens when he does not want to shower for more than a week. 👉 Swipe to see the solution to his runny nose: a shower!

Other ways to improve air humidity are:
🦜 Dry your laundry in the same room
🦜 Spray your bird (or its surroundings) daily
🦜 Put a bowl of water next to the cage to evaporate
🦜 Provide a bath
🦜 Use a humidifying machine

NOTE: Do get your bird checked out if this is the first time he/she is showing symptoms. Ask for a nose flush + cytology. If the symptoms do not relieve 24hours after improving humidity, also seek professional help.

**he

10/07/2024

This picture shows the one reptile hospitalisation unit we had. As we treat more and more reptiles, it was often too small 😅

👉 Swipe to see what improvement we made today!

Thanks to we can house multiple reptiles at once, give them the correct temperature, uvB lighting and humidity. Plus, this gigantic unit can double as a bird quarantaine or small mammal enclosure 😍

I know, it needs cleaning and some work, but we are one step forward on the way to a true exotic animal hospital 💪

09/07/2024

Do you know how to draw blood from a turtle?

It's not as hard as it seems! Apart from the fact that they are basically a living fortress and you cannot see the veins under the skin 🫣

There are a few places I like to try:
👉 Dorsal coccygeal vein (tail)
👉 Vena jugularis (lateral side of the neck, only for cooperative patients!)
👉 Subcarapacal plexus (basically go in the middle over the head just under the shell)

In this picture I ended up with the subcarapacal plexus 🤭

✅ A TRICK I learned from colleagues is to pre-heparinise your syringe. Because reptiles are slow with everything, their blood can clot while it is still collecting in the syringe. Flushing a heparine tube with sterile saline and then flushing your syringe with this solution will provide anti-coagulant in your syringe 😍

25/06/2024

Hello baby! 😍
Cats in our yard harassed this young blackbird, so naturally I had to step in 😋 He looked fine so we put him back, but within 5 minutes another cat got to him. Sadly, he will need to go to the sanctuary tomorrow.

It's that time of the year: young birds get their big-bird-feathers and fly out of the nest. However, flying takes practice. Young birds spend the first few days mostly on the ground, still getting fed by their parents. They sometimes even scream for them!

Every year, a lot of young birds get brought into a sanctuary on account of being 'orphaned'. Unfortunately, most of these babies would have been fine if left alone.

Swipe for the (Dutch) advice of the : leave them alone. Unless they are wounded or in direct danger (cat attacks, sitting in the middle of the road), do not interfere. You are, ofcourse, free to name them and cheer them on into adulthood 😇 This little dude is now called Nugget 🤭

01/06/2024

For everyone who had a hard time finding an exotics vet last week...

We know it's tough when we all go on a congress together. But it is worth it. Just last week, my first week back, we improved patiënt care tremendously:

✅ We improved our anesthesia protocols for rabbits and reptiles

✅ I used a scope to better assess this Guinea pigs teeth (pic 1)

✅ I practiced fixing up a broken snail I found in my garden (pic 2, where are my snail owners at?!)

✅ We improved our network of Dutch and international exotic vets and got to help treat a bird by phone

✅ We spayed a Bearded dragon with online help from (pic 3 are the ovaries, beardie was only 270 grams!)

✅ We finally bought the equipment for orthopedics in birds, which enabled us to help .nl (pic 4)

✅ & a lot more is coming!

06/05/2024

Birds never cease to amaze me... 😍

Harry came in with ring trauma. This "classic" emergency means that a birds foot and leg have swollen, and the foot ring has cut into the tissue. In Harry's case, after ring removal all the tendons and veins laid bare 😱

We had serious doubts that the leg would recover and the foot would survive 😢

But SWIPE to see why we always give birds a chance! This is the progress in just two weeks. Swelling has gone down, new skin has formed an Harry is able to use his foot normally. Isn't that amazing?! 😍

Keep in mind that scar tissue will shrink over time. In cases like these, with circular scars, a secondary 'ring' trauma may occur because of constriction of the scar. Owners will have to be vigilant for swelling of the foot and pain symptoms.

But for now, this is an absolute and unexpected win! 🥳 Go Harry!

19/04/2024

New fear unlocked: alfachloralose intoxication in birds.

Unfortunately, sometimes birds ingest rat poison. Luckily, there is a 'new' poison in town: alfachloralose.

Instead of causing hemorrhaging and quick death (like the 'older' poisons), this poison causes convulsions, coma, a drop in temperature and subsequent death. If we can pull your pet through the coma, it has good chances. I had seen it in cats, but never in a parrot.

What we did:
- Identify the poison
- Fight convulsions with midazolam
- Clean out the crop
- Put activated charcoal into the crop
- Metoclopramide to prevent crop stasis
- IV fluids to help eliminate the poison
- Monitor and keep up the body temperature
- Have the intern wake him every 30 minutes (Thank you Laura!)

And. He. Lived!

Just that evening, Casper was whistling and calling out at me when I came into the room!

We had to treat a secondary crop infection and give him some force feeding. But the next day, Casper was ready to go home 😱

Just putting it out there to help build awareness in owners and vets.
Owners: make sure your pet can not reach any poison you put out.
Vets: basic toxicology principles will get you far!

07/04/2024

I have been taking a course on hystricomorphs (Guinea pigs and chinchillas) at . Yesterday I had a chance to put theory into practice with this cutie, who had paralytic ileus secondary to the most stressful week of his life 🫤

Ileus means the gastrointestinal tract stops moving. It can happen due to obstruction, stress, infection and such. No nutrients can be absorbed and a lot of gas keeps forming that does not pass. You can imagine that hurts!

This condition is life threatening, and unfortunately Muis passed away after more than 24 hours of fighting. Still, I was very grateful to have all this knowledge and the confidence we did everything possible. If you are a vet, check out , they have a lot of free practical info!

If you have a chinchilla, Guinea pig or rabbit that is a bit depressed, eating less, pooping less... Do not hesitate to contact your vet!

30/03/2024

Macho is showing of his crooked smile ☺️
This is a case where life long beak trimming is in order.

However, every week owners ask me to trim perfectly normal beaks because they worry the upper beak is too long or sharp. Many owners believe beak trimming is a normal part of bird healthcare. It is NOT for healthy birds!

So if people schedule an appointment for beak trimming, we take the time to explain to them why a full clinical exam and work up is necessary...

Beaks that suddenly do grow too long are a sign of underlying disease. This disease is very often liver failure! Most cases we see of overgrown beaks are birds that eat seeds selectively, do not have access to uvB lighting and are overweight. Vitamin A deficiency makes the keratin (horn) of the beak softer, so it does not 'chip away'. If the keratin is ribbed instead of smooth, normal liver function is often compromised (usually we suspect fatty liver disease). Very often I also see petechiae, little spots of blood, in the beak. The liver should be making clotting factors, but it clearly is not...

The point here is that any bird with an overgrown beak should receive a full exam by a bird vet. If all we do is file down the beak (NEVER clip!), the overgrowth will return again and again until the bird invariably dies from the underlying causes.

Too often this still happens... Spread the word to owners and vets!

28/03/2024

Since we still have not found our perfect match, we adapted the job description. Read below if you are a vet tech who wants to work with all of these beautiful animals (Swipe 👉)
Sharing = caring 😇

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Ben jij een paraveterinair die graag in een dynamisch team werkt, de uitdaging aan wil gaan om naast honden en katten ook met vogels en bijzondere dieren te werken, en je wil de allerbeste zorg leveren voor alle diersoorten… En dat met veel liefde. Dan zijn wij op zoek naar jou!

Wij zijn op zoek naar:

Een paraveterinair die een passie heeft voor honden, katten én bijzondere dieren.

Ervaring in je vakgebied is gewenst, maar ervaring met bijzondere dieren is niet vereist.

Je wil leren hoe je de opname verzorgt van bijzondere dieren, braunules plaatst en narcose bewaakt bij allerlei diersoorten.

Je vindt het niet erg om regelmatig (in overleg) in het weekend te werken wanneer er opnamedieren zijn.

Je kunt een luisterend oor bieden aan de telefoon en goed onderscheiden wat spoed is en wat niet.

Bij Dierenkliniek Avonturia behandelen we ongeveer 50% bijzondere dieren en 50% honden/katten. Op dit moment bestaat het overgrote deel van de bijzondere dieren uit vogels, maar er komen ook wekelijks reptielen, konijnen en knagers op het spreekuur en we zijn onze ervaring hierin aan het uitbreiden.

Dierenkliniek De Duinen is een gezellige kliniek in Loosduinen, waar een echte dorpsmentaliteit heerst. Hier behandelen we honden en katten en proberen we altijd voor onze trouwe klanten klaar te staan.

wij bieden:

27-36 uur (in overleg).

verloning conform CAO.

Mogelijkheid tot het volgen van nascholingen.

Een gezellig team met een fijne werksfeer.

Word je hier enthousiast van wacht dan niet en neem contact met ons op via [email protected] en stuur je CV en motivatie mee. Wij maken dan een afspraak met je om kennis te maken en te zien of het klikt.

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16/03/2024

Lets put canaries in the spotlight 😍

People who work with me know that canaries are my favourite patients🥰 Never ask me if I have room for one, because I will make time!
Not only are they super cute, they have great personalities, are strong willed and extremely durable.

Often, owners and vets alike are afraid to even handle canaries because they are supposedly extra fragile. Granted, if any bird is in respiratory distress, has obesity or if you do not know the right handling technique, the risk is bigger. But I have been astonished by canaries zo many times!

👉 They are able to survive insane amounts of blood loss, considering their size. I have seen canaries with literal limbs torn off and then owners proceed to tell me it happened several days ago 😱

👉 They are usually easy with new foods, making it super easy to put them on a pelleted diet. I have repeatedly performed the 'trick' to converse a hospitalized canary to pellets as a surprise for the owners 🤭

👉 I have known canaries that reached 18 years of age... Even with no uvB light, vitamins or enrichment they can remain relatively healthy.

I can go on, but my actual point is...
They. Are. Worth. Veterinary. Care.

Owners: realize you have a beautiful, smart, complex tropical bird that will be with you for longer than the average dog! Invest in housing and save for healthcare.

Vets: realize that canaries are pets that people love and cherish like any other pet. Offer diagnostics, treatment plans, seek out help from an avian vet (DM me!). Too often the message to owners is 'I cannot do anything but euthanize'.

Please? 🥹

27/02/2024

What a cutie 😍

Darkwing stopped by for a weight check. Can you guess his weight?
👉 Swipe to see if you were right!

It's important for all animals to regularly weigh, but for small exotics maybe more so.
Many of them are extremely good at hiding disease and the first thing that becomes noticeable is often weight loss. Furthermore, obesity is rampant in exotic pets just as much as in dogs and cats.

I encourage owners to weigh their pets at home once a week or month, depending on the size of the pet (smaller = more often). So if you don't do it yet, start now!

21/02/2024

Meet Snowy 🐹

This Russian white dwarf hamster of 10 months was presented with a prolaps of the cheeck pouch. These are common, but not always easy to solve. Causes include infection, impaction and tumors. Snowy unfortunately had a tumor.

Luckily, we were able to remove the tumor and reposition the cheeck pouch. Snowy received a painkiller/anti-inflammatory and the pouch stayed in place without stitches.

Swipe to see her living her best life, thanks to the amazing vet techs that kept her alive while I did the easy work 😍

17/02/2024

Can we talk about heavy metal poisoning for a minute?

This week, I lost a six month old amazon. A baby. She came to me with red urine, vomiting and anorexia. On the x-ray, we saw particles in the stomach that could very well be metal. We started therapy with metal binders, fluids, oral feeding and anti-emetics. Unfortunately, she did not recover.

When the lab results came in, the lead in her blood was 23 times higher than the allowed amount. This is probably why she did not make it.

Lead (and other heavy metals) are still used in the making of bird cages, bells, and bird toys. We often find it in grit and bird sand. Birds chew on curtains with lead in the bottom lining, on zippers, glass-in-lead windows and lamps, jewelry, you name it. I have seen cases of heavy metal poisoning because of all of the above and more. In all sizes of birds.

And it makes me sad that so many people just don't know. They think they buy safe toys. They want to let the bird roam free even if no one is supervising. I get it. Life means taking risks, and some intoxications are hard to prevent. But so many of these cases could have been avoided with education.
Spread the word: only RVS without blemishes is safe, and only intact powder coated cages. Run a strong magnet trough your grit and replace sand with a safe alternative. Remove bells. When in doubt if something is safe, contact a bird vet.

Lets keep our birds safe ❤️

17/01/2024

Yay, my posters are up!

One in the consultation room because I can never see enough amazons, and one in the waiting room, because... Well, people tend to have to wait for me a lot 🫣
Now you can enjoy beautifully illustrated bird behaviour by while you wait!

Amazon owners, don't forget to come identify your amazon species 😇

05/01/2024

New year, new colleagues! Today, I wrote a promo because we are looking for new staff. Please help spread the word 😍

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Wil jij werken met bijzondere dieren, maar óók honden en katten behandelen? Dan ben je bij dierenkliniek Avonturia ontzettend welkom. Of je nu ervaring hebt of niet, wij zijn op zoek naar (bijna)dierenartsen en paraveterinairen die een passie hebben voor bijzondere dieren.

In onze kliniek behandelen wij ongeveer 50% bijzondere dieren en 50% honden/katten. Op dit moment bestaat het overgrote deel van de bijzondere dieren uit vogels, maar er komen ook wekelijks reptielen, konijnen en knagers op het spreekuur en we zijn onze ervaring hierin aan het uitbreiden. We hebben de mogelijkheid om al deze dieren op te nemen en de 'basis' operaties uit te voeren. Diagnostiek zoals bloedonderzoek en röntgenfoto's doen we dagelijks bij honden, katten, vogels én reptielen.

We zijn een jong team dat het liefst een 'bijzondere dieren'-ziekenhuis wil bouwen. Daarvoor hebben we echter meer collega's nodig! Onze kliniek zit in Den Haag in Avonturia de Vogelkelder, de grootste en meest veelzijdige dierenwinkel van Nederland, waardoor de aanloop van 'bijzondere patiënten' veel groter is dan gemiddeld. Wil jij met ons de allerbeste zorg leveren voor alle diersoorten? Leren hoe je vogels, kleine knagers en reptielen in de opname houdt, veilig onder narcose brengt (en houdt), behandelt en fatsoenlijk huisvest? Of weet je hier al wat van? Wil jij samen met ons blijven doorleren? En ben jij (bijna) afgestudeerd als paravet of dierenarts?

DM me!

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Adres

The Hague

Website

https://www.instagram.com/dierenarts_nouki/

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