UC Davis Lab / CDFA Lab

CAHFS will euthanize a sick bird for you and they will give you a code to use the UC discount for mailing in a dead bird.

The people at UC Davis, CAHFS California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory System, were SO KIND. My avian vet had suggested I send my chick for necropsy re: a unexplained death. Their website was very easy to use, and they had phone numbers if you were too traumatized over the death of your bird to comprehend what they were saying.

They have an entire section telling you how to get the samples to them for testing. They do all sorts of different kind of testing but I can't tell you about any of those as my experience (my first) was only with a necropsy.

They were very prompt in getting some info to me. My preliminary is due in today and I get a more detailed one next week.

The cost was only 25 dollars since I'm in state and I have less than 1000 birds. I have less than a dozen birds, but their number is 1000 or under. I could have done 2 birds for the same 25 dollars but thank goodness I only had 1 to send in.

Shipping can be done via ups, fed ex and other methods. They even have a fed ex number you can request to get a discount on the shipping of your speciman. I chose to use UPS as our biz has an account there, and honestly that was a mistake as they lost my chick, and left her out in a warehouse for a full day (and it was hot weather) but that's on UPS not on the lab.

The lab made the experience much less stressful. And my avian vet said they were very detailed.

update: I've had 2 more reports on this same little chick. they are very detailed. I still have more reports coming. I really want to know what happened to my chick.

5 stars for this lab.