Preventing medicine exotics medicine Flashcards
What are different strategies of preventative medicine?
- Husbandry/diet review and advice
- Routine health checks
- Vaccination
- Parasite control
- Disease testing and quarantine
- Surgical neuter
- Hormonal implants – chemical neuter
- Routine procedures – beak, nails and wing clips
What is husbandry review?
- Used with new patients
Routinely check at each visit:
◦ Current diet provided
◦ Any dietary supplements used
◦ Any new animals in the household
◦ Reptiles – Temperature, Humidity, UV-B bulb replacement, etc
◦ Birds – cage location, time spent outside cage, toys, etc
◦ Mammals – substrate, toys, exercise, social interactions
◦ Fish – Temperature, Water parameters (ideally test a water sample), etc
What is husbandry advice?
- Verbal
- Client handouts
- Directing owners to reliable sources of information – careful!
◦ Websites
◦ Books and magazines
◦ Organizations
What would you vaccinate rabbits against?
- Myxomatosis
- Viral haemorrhagic disease (VHD) 1+2
- yearly boosters
What should you vaccinate ferrets against?
- Distemper - yearly boosters
- Rabies - boosters every 18months
What can happen to ferrets with vaccine reactions?
Anaphylactic reactions (5-25 min after vaccine):
◦ Hyperaemia, vomiting, hypersalivation; occasionally diarrhoea
◦ More severe cases dyspnoea + cyanosis
◦ Independent of previous vaccination history
◦ Can happen with any vaccine
How can you prevent vaccine reactions in ferrets?
◦ Careful selection of vaccine
◦ Reconstitute vaccine with sterile water/saline
◦ Diphenhydramine 2mg/kg PO, SC 15-30 min before vaccine
◦ Give Distemper and Rabies vaccines 3-4 weeks apart
◦ Monitor ferrets 20-30 min post-vaccination
How can you treat vaccine reactions in ferrets?
◦ Adrenaline 0.01-0.02mg/kg IV, IM, IT
◦ Diphenhydramine 0.5-2mg/kg IM, IV, PO TID-BID
◦ Dexamethasone 0.25-1mg/kg IV or Prednisolone 5-10mg/kg IV
◦ Supportive care: Supply O2, IVFT, etc
What would you vaccinate racoon-dog, foxes?
- Distemper
What would you vaccinate racoon + coati against?
- Distemper
- Panleucopaenia
What would you vaccinate meerkat for?
- Distemper
What would you vaccinate pigeons for?
- Avian pox
- Paramyxovirus
What would you vaccinate canaries for?
- Avian pox
What would you vaccinate poultry, turkeys, ducks, geese?
- Same as invaccination
- Newcastle
*mareks
*IBD
*Egg drop syndrome
*AE
*ILT - Salmonella
- Infectious bronchitis
- Cocci
What are different strategies for parasite control?
- Adequate husbandry – patient’s immune system
- Regular cleaning/hygiene – reduce environmental parasite load
- Routine faecal testing – early infection detection; 1st consult, then every 6-12 months
- Preventive worming/ectoparasiticides – on a case-by-case basis
What animals are oxyurids (pinworms) found?
- Reptiles
- Rabbits
- Occasional rodents
- increased in immunosuppressed patients
- asses patient, environment + egg count before dispensing medication (usually commensal)
In what animals are ciliates commensal / low pathogenicity?
- Tortoises
- Herbivore lizards
- significant in any other species
What are common option for wormers in exotics?
- Praziquantel - tapeworms - oral / injectable / spot-ons
- Oxfendazole - nematodes - oral
- Fenbendazole - oral - (can cause toxicity + immunosuppression)
- Ivermectin - nematodes - injectable / oral / spot-ons
What are ivermectins toxic to?
- Chelonias
- Skunks
- Some snake species
What can be used for external parasite control?
- Fleas = imidaclopride (DO NOT use Lufenuron in rabbits / rodents)
- Flystrike = cyromazine
- Lice / mites = Ivermectin
- Feather lice = permethrin powder / sprays
What can be used to prevent heartworm in ferrets?
- Moxidectin applied monthly
How should you quarantine birds and reptiles?
- For breeders - medium / large collectors
- Ideally 2 months
- Separate facilities and objects
- 2x faecal testing (Start + end of quarantine)
- Species specific disease testing
What would you look for with PCR testing in Psittacines?
- Bornavirus
- Circovirus / PBFD
- +/- Polymavirus
- +/- Chlamydophila psittaci
What would you look for with PCR testing in snakes?
◦ Arenavirus/IBD
◦ Ferlavirus/Paramyxovirus
◦ Reovirus
◦ Adenovirus
- Faecal testing = cryptosporidium
What animals are neutering routines carried out in?
- Rabbits
- Male guinea pigs
- Male rats
What are main benefits of rabbits spays?
- Population control
- Reduces unwanted behaviours
- Prevent uterine neoplasia
Why would you not neuter ferrets?
- Increased risk of adrenal gland disease
What happens to female ferrets if not mated?
- Hyperoestrogenism = bone marrow suppression + aplastic anaemia
What do the adrenal glands do in ferrets?
- Produce mostly androgens
- Corticosteroids produced diffusely in several other tissues
- Affected by circadian rhythms / photoperiod
- Gonads provide negative feedback to hypothalamus-hypophysis, hence suppressing adrenal function - if no gonads = negative feedback disappears
How can you neuter male ferrets?
- Deslorelin
- Apply every 18-24 months
- Needs brief GA
What are other routine procedures of birds, mammals + reptiles?
- Birds =
- nail clipping / burring
- beak burring / corrections
- Wing clipping - clip 1ary/ 2ary flight feathers
- ID chip
- Mammals =
- nail clipping
- ID chip (rabbits + carnivores)
- Reptiles
- Nail burring
- ID Chip (++tortoises)
- Beak burr in chelonias
