Tauranga Exotic Vet

23/03/2026

I will be away at a conference and then on annual leave from Thursday 26th March until after easter. My first day back is Tuesday 7th April at The Referral Centre Tauranga Exotics.

24/12/2025

I hope you all have a very happy Christmas and enjoy the holiday season. I will not be working at The Referral Centre until Tuesday 6th January. I will be available at Bayfair Vets (ph. 07 575 6665) on Monday 29th December, Wednesday 31st December and Saturday 3rd January for any urgent cases.

23/07/2025

I am now available for unwell bird and exotic animal consultations at Bayfair Vets, 61 Farm Street, Mount Maunganui (07 575 6665), on Mondays and Thursdays, and Wednesdays, from the 13th August, at Papamoa Vets, 3 Percy Road, Papamoa (07 572 0441).

On Tuesdays and Fridays, wellness and sick animal consultations, rabbit calicivirus vaccinations and all dentistry and surgeries will be done at The Referral Centre, 1450 Cameron Road, Greerton, Tauranga (0800 838397) .

As always, please phone for consultations or to book in surgery.

Send a message to learn more

16/07/2024

31/08/2023

What should you feed your budgie, cockatiel or smaller aviary bird? Although budgies, canaries and most finch species are granivorous (ie. seed eaters), they also require a source of essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals such as calcium. Seed does not supply all of these nutrients so giving vegetables will help provide the vitamins and pellets/crumbles will provide essential amino acids, calcium and other minerals and vitamins.
Many birds become used to a specific diet so changing to a more nutritionally balanced and complete diet such as this can be challenging. By making all the food particles an equivalent size like this diet does, it helps to encourage the birds to eat all of the different components rather than if they are in different dishes and different sized. This recipe is what I feed my own birds every day.

26/08/2023

Some weekend listening for you... In the latest episode of The Vet Chat podcast, exotics and emergency veterinarian Martin Earles shares great recommendations for handling, examining and treating . He discusses a range of topics to boost the confidence of veterinarians examining and treating rabbits, including:

🐇 the ideal combination of male and female rabbits in a household
🐇 performing an oral examination
🐇 safe antibiotics
🐇 best desexing practices
🐇 general husbandry tips

Listen at nz.virbac.com/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts!

24/05/2023

This weekend sees the the annual Tauranga Bird Club show. This year it is being held at the Tauranga Racecourse, Cameron Road, just across the road from The Referral Centre where we are based. This means that I won't be available this Friday the 26th May as I am the show manager and will be getting the venue setup for the show.
The show is open to the public on Saturday afternoon from 1pm until 5pm and on Sunday morning from 8.30am until 1pm. We hope to see you there! Keep an eye out for our table in the Sir Tristram room where you will also see my daughter Amy and some of her fabulous artwork.

29/11/2022

We are receiving reports of kororā/little blue penguins washing ashore weak and exhausted in the Bay of Plenty. This little one is severely underweight and they are likely starving due to the high sea surface temperature, which means it's harder for them to find food especially fledglings who are leaving the nest for the first time and learning to hunt 🐟

Please call 0800 SICK PENGUIN for Western Bay of Plenty or 0800 DOC HOT for advice if you spot a penguin on the beach during the day. Please give these birds space and dogs on leads on beaches 🥰

19/10/2022

Update on Cola the red eared slider that had fractured her shell.
Today I called into Chartwell CareVets and had a recheck with Cola and her mum. Her shell is healing very well and she is using her fractured femur without any problems. She will be ok to start swimming again and be fed in the water like normal so her feeding tube can be removed soon.