Palliative Care and Poultry

What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is the specialized day to day care for those people and animals with medical conditions that require day to day maintenance.

Palliative care can include the upkeeping of mobility with mobility devices, physical therapy, and medications.

Another example of palliative care includes specializing diet and ways of feeding for these different medical conditions.

Opal takes a lot of palliative care, from diet to her chair, every aspect of her life is geared towards her medical conditions.

The most technical part of her palliative care is actually her diet surprisingly (she does not currently take any medications and her therapy includes basic PROM (passive range of motion) exercises).

This includes mixing three different feeds together that include a chick starter, an all flock, and a game bird feed, a vitamin/electrolyte powder, grit, and water. Often in the morning she gets a glucosamine supplement. Explaining this diet will be another post.

Palliative care is best created with the animal's preferences, a vet, and your common sense and or experience in mind.

It's not a one size fits all. Every bird will require differences in their palliative care, just like how humans each need a personalized care plan in similar situations.

For example while Opal likes human contact and to be right next to me all day, others may prefer their own space and want as much independence as possible.

Some may need to have food limited for their health, while Opal needs to eat as much as she will eat with that food being very high protein and calorie.

With that being said, palliative care is 80% of your work as a microsanctuary owner, and your day to day work with the animals under your care

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