For much of the last forty-three years, avian veterinarians have been occupied with developing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for companion birds. Birds have often been presented in an emergency condition, and many of these birds died. In the late 70's, the most conspicuous causes were related to importation (eg, infectious diseases, parasites, immunosuppression from overuse of antibioti...

Retrieving some items from memory can impair the subsequent recall of other related but not retrieved items, a phenomenon called retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). The dominant explanation of RIF-the inhibition account-asserts that forgetting occurs because related items are suppressed during retrieval practice to reduce retrieval competition. This item inhibition persists, making it more diff...

Pet birds are a not-so-well known veterinarian's clientship fraction. Bought individually or in couples, as families often do (which is a lucrative business for pet shops or local breeders) or traded (sometimes illegally) for their very high genetic or exotic value, these birds, commonly canaries, parakeets or parrots, are regularly sold at high prices. These animals, however, are potential car...

This paper describes an experiment examining how people compare two alternative categories and decide whether a given item would be better placed in one category or the other. The experiment asks whether an item's comparative classification in one of two alternative categories is related to the difference between the item's typicality as a member of those two categories. The alternative categor...

BACKGROUND: Campylobacteriosis is one of the most commonbacterial intestinal disorders of humans in many countries.A wide range of domestic and wild bird species have been identifiedas natural reservoirs. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this studywas to determine the Campylobacter spp from pet birds andscreen the determined Campylobacters for presence of virulencecytolethal distending toxin (cdt) genes....

Faecal samples were individually collected from pet (n = 63) and zoo (n = 83) birds representing 14 orders and 63 species. All the samples were examined by faecal flotation technique. In a subgroup of samples (n = 75), molecular assays were also used to detect Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia duodenalis cysts. Overall, 35.6% of the birds harboured parasites (42.2% of zoo birds and 27% of pet...

Psittacosis, also known as parrot fever and ornithosis, is a bacterial infection of humans that can cause severe pneumonia and other serious health problems. It is caused by Chlamydophila psittaci, formerly known as Chlamydia psittaci. From 1988 through 2003, 935 human cases of psittacosis were reported to the CDC and most resulted from exposure to infected pet birds, usually cockatiels, parake...