Tauranga Exotic Vet

16/07/2024

31/08/2023

What should you feed your budgie, cockatiel or smaller aviary bird? Although budgies, canaries and most finch species are granivorous (ie. seed eaters), they also require a source of essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals such as calcium. Seed does not supply all of these nutrients so giving vegetables will help provide the vitamins and pellets/crumbles will provide essential amino acids, calcium and other minerals and vitamins.
Many birds become used to a specific diet so changing to a more nutritionally balanced and complete diet such as this can be challenging. By making all the food particles an equivalent size like this diet does, it helps to encourage the birds to eat all of the different components rather than if they are in different dishes and different sized. This recipe is what I feed my own birds every day.

26/08/2023

Some weekend listening for you... In the latest episode of The Vet Chat podcast, exotics and emergency veterinarian Martin Earles shares great recommendations for handling, examining and treating . He discusses a range of topics to boost the confidence of veterinarians examining and treating rabbits, including:

🐇 the ideal combination of male and female rabbits in a household
🐇 performing an oral examination
🐇 safe antibiotics
🐇 best desexing practices
🐇 general husbandry tips

Listen at nz.virbac.com/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts!

15/06/2023

*New opening day*

From July 2023 we will open on Wednesday 8AM-1PM for appointments. Our usual opening hours remain the same: Tuesday and Friday 8AM-6PM.

24/05/2023

This weekend sees the the annual Tauranga Bird Club show. This year it is being held at the Tauranga Racecourse, Cameron Road, just across the road from The Referral Centre where we are based. This means that I won't be available this Friday the 26th May as I am the show manager and will be getting the venue setup for the show.
The show is open to the public on Saturday afternoon from 1pm until 5pm and on Sunday morning from 8.30am until 1pm. We hope to see you there! Keep an eye out for our table in the Sir Tristram room where you will also see my daughter Amy and some of her fabulous artwork.

29/11/2022

We are receiving reports of kororā/little blue penguins washing ashore weak and exhausted in the Bay of Plenty. This little one is severely underweight and they are likely starving due to the high sea surface temperature, which means it's harder for them to find food especially fledglings who are leaving the nest for the first time and learning to hunt 🐟

Please call 0800 SICK PENGUIN for Western Bay of Plenty or 0800 DOC HOT for advice if you spot a penguin on the beach during the day. Please give these birds space and dogs on leads on beaches 🥰

19/10/2022

Update on Cola the red eared slider that had fractured her shell.
Today I called into Chartwell CareVets and had a recheck with Cola and her mum. Her shell is healing very well and she is using her fractured femur without any problems. She will be ok to start swimming again and be fed in the water like normal so her feeding tube can be removed soon.

27/09/2022

Guinea Pig appreciation week - social groupings

Guinea pigs are highly sociable animals. In the wild they would live in social groups of 20 or more so they are happiest when they live with other guinea pigs. Females generally live well together, however two males housed together can squabble so it is advisable for both to be neutered to minimise this. Guinea pigs housed in larger groups should ideally consist of one neutered male and a group of females.

Whether you have two, or twenty, guinea pigs living together, watch them closely to make sure that none are showing bullying behaviour.

26/08/2022

So what did we do for Cola? The main aims of treatment are to stabilise the shell fractures, provide pain relief, prevent infection and provide nutrition during the healing phase. Aquatic turtles usually only feed whilst in the water. Initially, we are managing Cola out of the water so a feeding tube was inserted in the oesophagus through a small hole in the neck. Pain relief medication, food, water and antibiotics can all be given through the tube.
We anaesthetised Cola and stabilised the bridge fractures with stainless steel screws and orthopaedic wire. Plastic bases, cable ties and epoxy were used to stabilise the carapace fracture.

24/08/2022

Yesterday we were fortunate enough to assist a special patient with some rather nasty injuries. Cola is a red-eared slider, an aquatic turtle who managed to escape from her home. She wandered onto the road and sadly was hit by a car. A nice person found her and took her to Carevets Chartwell Vet hospital in Hamilton. Vet Taryn did a great job with the initial treatment and luckily Cola's owners tracked her down. Taryn contacted me about a referral to The Referral Centre - Tauranga Exotics, to help with her shell injuries.
Thank you to Cola's nice owners for bringing her over to see us yesterday. It was a very interesting case for us to manage and we were happy to be able to offer our assistance.
More to come......