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Meds in water

Lil Birds R Cool

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I have always been advised against putting medications into the birds' water bowl. There are any number of reasons not to do this: you cannot control the dosages, it may spoil, etc.

Why would you ever put medication into your birds' water rather than giving it to them orally?

(I am not referring to something like natural apple cider vinegar in the water)

Thanks in advance for your responses.
 

BayuCah'ya

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I wouldn't. Ever. Even if the birds are unhandleable, I'd much rather put it in a small piece of bread and watch to make sure they eat the whole rather than in the water. That way at least I'd know they got *most* of the dose.
 

wonderb

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Yeah, I agree with Emily, I wouldn't ever. Birds don't generally drink that much water, so you'd have to put in quite a bit of medicine to get the full dose into the bird. But if the meds are mixed with something sweet to cover the taste, the bird might drink more water than it normally would, causing other problems. Or on the opposite end it may make the water taste bad and they won't drink any at all and the bird will get dehydrated. Its just a bad idea all around.
 

Sunnyside

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Since Mia's WBC was high she is on Doxy for the next 2 weeks. My Vet asked if I wanted the water soluble or syringe and I asked for the syringe but asked him if people really do the water method and if so how effective it is. He said some people just cannot give their birds meds and he feels that this is better than nothing but he did say it is not as effective...I will stick with the syringe, if every bird could be as easy as Farfey no one would have issues :)
 

BayuCah'ya

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I will say that teaching a bird to take medicine from a syringe is easier than most people think it is. Even unhandleable birds can learn this behavior. So that's always an option.
 

Sunnyside

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Emily, I agree! When I first joined here one of the first threads I read was Saroj's thread on syringe training. The next day I went to my Vet's office and got syringes and came home and started practicing! It was much easier than I thought and I would recommend it to anyone that has birds because you never know when your loved one will need meds :).

Saroj's thread is now a sticky :)

http://forums.avianavenue.com/educate-yourself/54654-syringe-training-101-a.html
 
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Zeze

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That was precious. :ycm:
 

lupe

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Maybe I'm stupid?? or I just got lucky? I bought my U2 the sunshine factor with omega when I first brought him home because his feather quality really sucked. Well, I just took that syringe and opened his beak...in it went. I have always been of the mind set that if you cannot control medicine administration with any animal...you should learn how too.
 
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