Tokyo's Bird Central Hospital - Maybe Too Well Equipped?

[avicella]

For claw trimming and "bird hotel" services I use a couple of general veterinarians in my immediate area, vets who deal with dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, birds, everything. But when I'm more worried about a bird health problem I've gone to the Kotori Central Hospital (kotori means bird or small bird or cagebird), which has two locations in the general Tokyo area.

These guys have their own miniature bird CT scanner and ultrasonic scanners. They also have an operating room with bird anaesthesiology equipment, and they do internal operations on tiny birds, by putting them out with gas hoods, and then taping their wings down with masking tape on little mini surgical tables. The main surgeon says it's harder than human surgery, because you can't pull all the guts out and do the surgery and throw them back in as with humans: bird innards are more fixed in place.

Although in one sense I'm glad to have access to such a facility, on the other hand it kind of concerns me. If anything serious happened to my birds, the availability of this kind of treatment would force me to make the choice between spending a fortune on care or doing nothing. Without such choices I'd have the out of just thinking of it as nature's way and fate, and not feeling guilty! (There is bird health insurance available from Anicom, http://www.anicom-sompo.co.jp/ , but it's pretty expensive.)

The CT scanner and ultrasonic equipment are pictured at the bottom of this page: http://www.birdpro.jp/byoin.html

[cindy]

My avian vet has the same thing....expensive but well worth it especially if you own the larger parrots.

[L in Ontario]

Wow - quite the set up.

"Build it and they will come."