Aussie Finch Forum

What you are looking for is usually called a compound microscope.They may have either one or two eype-pieces for viewing but this is not a sterioscopic image. There are fancy ones with reverse stage (light on top and objective lenses underneath whihc are used for examing liquid cultures).. The basic one you are after woul look like this courtesy of http://biology.unm.edu/ccouncil/Biology ... scopes.htm

The other major class of microscpe is the dissecting microscope which offers less power full magnification and often has sterioscopic zoom lenses. This type of microscope would be suitable for your necroscopic examinations. These microscopes look like this:

courtesy of http://www.classhelp.info/Biology/AUnit1Intro.htm

Myzomela wrote:So what you are looking for is a "binocular" microscope- 2 eyepieces; with 4x, 10x, 40 X ( and/or 100x) objectives and built-in lightsource.

Thanks for that Myzomela, I think going by the prices you quoted, second hand might be the way to go. Im already on the look out for the Danny Brown book "Under the Microscope". Have found it on a couple of sites.

Thanks for the pics Greg, they will help when Im trying to sort the one out Ive seen.
Will have to get onto my vet and the uni and maybe even the hospital. That will have to wait till the newsletter is done, Im a bit behind on that at the moment.

Dr Rob Marshall has a dvd on using a microscope, also includes the correct type to buy. Advertised at $24.95
Most pigeon flyers use one to check droppings but you maybe able to ring him to see if its suitable for your needs.
Some of the flyers up here got their microscope from Aldies, yes you read it right Aldies Supermarket.
steve
ps just checked his site and theres a couple of other ones their and a book as well on using microscopes.
Go to www.ladygouldianfinch.com/shopping_book.mgi

Steve I bought an overlocker from Aldi , did my homework and found out I paid $199.00 for last years model of Janome retailing at $700.00 .

I was stoked . The Janome stockists tells me they but up superseded stock and relabel the item and them sell them off cheap . Dare say the microscope was worth a lot more than Aldi charged for it.

Thanks for that Steve, another book to the list!
Will have to checkout Aldi, they certainly didnt sell microscopes when I was shopping in there in the UK a few years ago.
side note....hubby did some work on the fire protection in the big Aldi warehouse in Altona in Vic a few years ago when it was getting built.

I know they charge About $50 for a fecal sample.Not to sure how hard some of these things would be to identify, But if it is realistically not to difficult i would be interested in a microscope aswell.

I used to do egg counts on sheep to work out drench resistance and drench rotation.With birds is to find out off someone who knows the acceptable egg count burden.

Here on the coast we can send off a number of droppings to Dr Marshall in a clip lock bag [sandwich bag] and he charges about $10. As dr marshall specalises in racing pigeons and most other types of birds he usually gives you a correct diagnosis. However as with some vets they will always find something wrong with your birds so use comonsense when taking their advice.
Those flyers with scopes usually just moniter the droppings over time and if anything is there apply medicines as needed.
The worst thing however is treating your birds with the incorrect medications which leads to further problems also some flyers also over-react when seeing something and treating for it when its not neccesary.
With racing pigeons they usually have ecoli and other things in them which is natural its just a matter of keeping it all in check.
steve

Here's another project once you have your microscope - add it to your computer and then get on-line opinions with the New Scientist digital microscope project

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/ ... microscope