Bird Ecology and Conservation A Handbook of Techniques

Table 8.5

Laboratory tests on birds

Samples

Available from

Comments

Blood in appropriate anticoagulant

Usually only from live bir

ds, occasionally

Various blood tests can be carried out on birds, an

d increasingly

for hematological and clinical

small samples can be r

etrieved from

databases of reference values are being established. The sub

ject is a

chemical analysis and detection

birds that are very recentl

y dead

specialized one and reference should be made to a st

andard text

of hemoparasites

(Campbell 1995; Hawkey and Dennett 1989).Blood smears can be of value but, again, experience is needed to produce good preparations and the possibilities of error, especially when looking for and quantifying hemoparasites, are high (Cooper and Anwar 2001; Feyndi

.ch

et al

. 1995; Godfrey

et al

. 1987)

Blood without anti-coagulant

Usually only from live birds, occa

sionally

Serology, usually to detect antibodies to viruses and other or

ganisms,

(serum) for serological

small samples can be retrieved from

has an important par

t to play both in disease diagnosis and health

investigation

birds that are recently dead

monitoring. It has recently, for example, been used to demonstr

ate

neutralizing antibodies to West Nile virus in Britain (Buckley

et al

. 2003).

Various serological tests are available and each demands skill in performance and interpretation. A rise in antibody titer is usually considered indicative of exposure to a specific organism. Such a rise usually takes time and may not be apparent in birds that have onlyrecently contracted an infection

Tissues fixed in 10% formalin

Dead birds, occasionall

y live

Fixed tissues can be stored indefinitely and examined at a later st

age.

(preferably buffered) for histology

(biopsies)—the latter usuall

y only

The general rule should be to take lung, liver, and kidne

y (LLK), plus any

where the lesion is on the skin or is

organs that show abnormalitie

s or which are considered important

readily accessible surgically

because they may provide useful information (e.g. bursa of Fabricius andthymus of young birds, which can yield data on immune status—see t

ext)