Annual Vet Check for Budgies?

I was wondering if anyone actually does annual vet checks for their budgies. Like, I'm not saying they don't deserve an annual physical, but I personally only take my kids in if there's something I'm concerned about. Everyday, I carefully watch each of them eat, socialize, fly, and walk around. Every bird who's healthy is always healthy, and any bird who's sick is sick due to chronic health problems that can't be cured (asthma, lung disease, cancer). I look at their toes, eyes, preen glands, ceres, bums, beaks, and posture.

I physically examine certain individuals myself at least a few times a year since they have ongoing health problems, and I often weigh them while I'm at it. I'll also listen to their breathing while I'm at it to make sure their lungs sound okay. Anytime I've brought a bird to the vet (I've taken most of my birds to the vet), the vet comments on how fit they are and never sees any signs of vitamin or mineral deficiencies.

They should go in 1x a year-- they hide illness (unlike humans). I do not have budgies (I did ), but 1x yearly is important. Sure, you could luck out and not run into issues if you do not bring them in yearly, but there is risk. That is the ideal situation--getting them in 1x a year. Are they going to die because you don't? Maybe, maybe not (PROBABLY not, but so many budgies get sick fast and die quickly...so you are hedging your bets). Early on, we had one that never went to the vet for years (now...that was not good....we just didn't know)...the point is, they don't all die, but they can and do.
x-rays are invaluable... and you can't do that from home. Same with blood work, even if you don't do it yearly.

You place an interesting question, but one that is not framed in reality, as most owners have little to no knowledge in what is a healthy diet and what is not, let alone, what is a healthy Parrot and what is not.

Regarding what you provided as a description of your abilities, the need for a yearly visit is questionable. Having said that, there are medical issues that do rise with age and/or exposure, and Full Spectrum Blood Testing is required to follow properly.

The dangers of a general agreement with your point is; you are an exception and by no means not the rule regarding Parrot Owners. To fully agree with you would expose massive numbers of Parrots to potential shorter life.

As a means of maintaining the good health of your Parrots, clearly, you are keeping a detailed file on each...

You both make good points. I guess I'll start bringing in the kids for a yearly physical, get x-rays every couple of years on the ones who are tough enough to get x-rays (there's one or two I wouldn't have x-rays performed on because they'd probably go into shock from overreacting)...as for blood work, I don't know. In my experience, there's not a whole lot of tests they can perform due to how small my kids are. Noah, Rosie, Starlight, Trixie, and Rainy would probably be safe to take for blood work, seeing as they're all younger and are quite brave and/or healthy. Meanwhile, Alex has chronic health problems and is really old (he's arthritic, has severe asthma, etc.), Lara hasn't been doing well (she's nine or ten, has an atrophied preen gland, had to have an episiotomy because her cloaca was too small to pass poop and she also had eggbinding, and she's had cancer in her hip and abdomen for the past three years), Sunshine is yellow so she bleeds and bruises really easily, and Birdie is too frail (she has anxiety attacks, bad liver disease, a huge tumour; please note that it's her previous guardian's fault, and I've shrunk her tumour down by at least a third with dandelion root extract, and I'm treating her liver with milk thistle seed extract).

Having physicals and x-rays performed at my local vet wouldn't cost more than $200, I don't think, but blood work at the Bowmanville vet an hour away...I'd have to pay a visiting fee, an additional fee for each bird they haven't seen before, they'd probably insist on doing a physical which would cost more money, then they'd charge me to draw the blood, another charge to transport the blood, then a charge for each test they do on the blood. So five birds...almost $800 to have blood work done. I think they might give discounts for bringing in an army of birds at once, so maybe $650. If I'm gonna pay such a ridiculous amount of money while living in a country with universal healthcare (non-prescription related medical expenses are a foreign concept to me), then I guess I'd rather make a whole trip out of it and go see Tiki and Ria's old vet all the way out in Toronto. I've seen five different exotic animal vets over the years (exotic vets are fairly new here in Canada), and Dr. Morris (local, very inexpensive, compassionate, performs lots of procedures for free, but limited in what procedures he can perform) and Dr. Yee (expensive, but I really like her and she really cares about and values the birds I bring in, no matter how old/inexpensive/small they are).

As for keeping track of their health, I don't think it's anything particularly special. I just remember how each bird typically stands and holds their wings, the colour and shape of each toe, which nails always grow too long, the colour/shape/and imperfections on their beaks, where each of Trixie's deformed feathers are from her polyfolliculitis (it makes it easier for me to remove them), etc. Whenever I see animals out in public, especially fish, I can tell you right away whether or not they're healthy. It just comes naturally to me.