Current Anesthesia Recommendations for Companion Birds

Avian anesthesia is becoming more commonplace in clinical practice. To successfully provide chemical restraint and anesthesia for avian patients, one needs to recognize their unique anatomic and physiologic differences. These differences often impact intraoperative management and monitoring. Once an understanding of their differences is achieved, anesthesia can be performed with few complications. There are several differences between avian and mammalian anesthesia that require the avian anesthetist to be more attentive. If the anesthetist is conscientious and has a well planned protocol then all avian anesthetic events can be successful. Many practitioners are performing anesthesia on several avian species including wildlife, game birds and companion birds. Most of the information and situations that will be discussed will be concerning companion avian patients