Avian Medication Dosing Calculator

Each medication's mg/kg figure was documented in veterinary literature at a specific dosing interval -- Meloxicam and both Itraconazole entries are dosed once daily (SID) at the rates used here, while Enrofloxacin, Doxycycline, and Metronidazole are typically dosed twice daily (BID). Some general avian sources describe Meloxicam and Itraconazole as tolerating once-to-twice-daily dosing depending on the specific reference and formulation, but this calculator deliberately restricts both to the more conservative once-daily interval its rate was verified at, since allowing a once-daily rate to be paired with a twice-daily schedule could silently double the computed daily total -- a real overdose risk rather than just an inconvenience.

Itraconazole is generally well tolerated by most psittacine species at the standard 10 mg/kg once-daily rate, but African grey parrots are specifically documented in the Merck/MSD Veterinary Manual to be unusually sensitive to it, with reported toxicity signs including anorexia, regurgitation, and weakness at the standard dose -- that source specifically recommends African greys be dosed at 5 mg/kg/day instead. Because a generic weight-based calculation can't know your bird's species on its own, this calculator lists "Itraconazole (African grey/sensitive)" as its own selectable entry at the reduced 5 mg/kg rate, so choosing it directly computes the safer dose rather than requiring you to manually halve the standard result -- always confirm the correct entry and dose with an avian veterinarian before treating an African grey.

Dose scales directly and linearly with body weight in this calculator, and birds span an unusually wide weight range -- from a budgerigar around 35 grams to a macaw around 1,000 grams or larger species beyond that -- so a small absolute weighing error represents a much larger proportional dosing error in a small bird than the same error would in a larger one. Because avian patients generally have less physiological buffer for dosing mistakes than larger mammals, always weigh the bird on an accurate gram scale immediately before calculating a dose rather than using a remembered or estimated weight.

No -- this calculator provides general reference dosing figures drawn from published avian veterinary literature, not an individualized prescription. Actual dosing should always be confirmed by an avian veterinarian who can account for the bird's specific species, health status, concurrent medications, and the exact concentration of the formulation being used, since generic reference tables like this one cannot capture species-specific sensitivities such as the itraconazole caution in African grey parrots.