A spoonful of formula: hand-rearing and metabolic bone disease of roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) at Zoo Miami

Citation

Treiber KH, Bezjian M, and McHale M. 2023. A spoonful of formula: hand-rearing and metabolic bone disease of roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) at Zoo Miami. In Brooks M, Fidgett A, Kendrick E, Treiber K Eds. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Conference on Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition, Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition Foundation and AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, Hybrid.

Abstract

From 2021-2023, 6 Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) chicks were hatched from eggs and hand-reared at Zoo Miami. A new hand-rearing protocol was developed based on protocols from 4 other institutions and adjusted over the course of hand-rearing at Zoo Miami. Previous formulas were labor intensive to make and involved discarding 30-50% of the recipe due to the inability to strain this portion. As a result, significant loss of nutrients was possible with a final product potentially differing from batch to batch. A simpler recipe was developed for ease and consistency and this was successful in rearing 1 chick in 2021 and 2 chicks in 2022. However, in 2023, all 3 spoonbill chicks presented with extreme metabolic bone disease (MBD) around the time of weaning and were euthanized between 15 and 26 d of age. This paper describes the Zoo Miami formulation and the growth outcomes and explores the nutritional aspects of the 2023 clinical cases.

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