Evaluation of hematobiochemical effects of intramuscular administration of tramadol, methadone and pethedine in pigeons

The knowledge of avian pain management is found as a new and restricted subject. Therefore, more studies are needed to be performed in this field. In addition to variation of analgesics, selection of appropriate doses of analgesics for different species of birds is an important challenge. According to the limited information about applications and effects of opioids in birds that have different hematologic profiles compared to mammals, and also because of enormous usage of these potent analgesics, this study was performed to evaluate and compare the hematological and biochemical effects of three common opioids tramadol, methadone and pethidine in pigeons. Sixty four adult pigeons of both sexes were randomly divided into 4 equal drug groups. Tramadol (4 mg/kg), methadone (5 mg/kg) and pethidine (20 mg/kg) were injected intramuscularly in groups 1, 2 and 3. Physiologic saline (0.5 ml) was intramuscularly injected to the pigeons in group 4 as the control group. Before drug administration and time of 30, 60 and 180 minutes after injection, blood samples have been taken from 4 pigeons in each group for measurement of some hematological parameters (RBC, WBC, PCV, HGB and H/L index) and serum biochemical values (TP, Alb, Glob, Glu, AST and Cortisol). Statistically evaluation of data showed suppression in stress indices as cotisole,leukocytes and H/L index which indicates profound sedative and analgesic effects of methadone compared to other opioids.