AAV calendar spotlights psittacine reproductive health webinar and 2026 events

The June webinar is the first date to circle

A free, live, interactive webinar on reproductive disease in female psittacine birds is the clearest near-term item on the AAV calendar for anyone who works with parrots. Scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 2 pm EDT, the session is presented by Don Harris, DVM, and is RACE approved for 1 credit hour.

The topic is not abstract. LafeberVet’s abstract says reproductive disease in captive psittacine birds can take multiple forms, but the condition avian practitioners most often encounter is dystocia, or egg binding. That makes this session especially relevant if you manage hens, work in rescue, or want a better read on the kinds of emergencies that can look like behavior trouble, poor diet, or simple malaise until they escalate.

Why this matters for everyday parrot care

Reproductive problems in parrots are often missed early because the warning signs are subtle, and because many birds hide discomfort well. A session built around dystocia is useful precisely because it focuses attention on one of the most common reproductive emergencies in companion birds, where rapid recognition can change the outcome.

For you, the value is practical: better triage, better questions to ask when a hen seems off, and a sharper sense of when a “wait and see” approach is not enough. For clinics and rescues, it is a reminder that reproductive medicine is still one of the areas where public-facing education can directly improve handling, monitoring, and referral decisions.

The education pipeline is not a single event

The June webinar sits inside a much bigger year-round training rhythm. AAV’s calendar already listed an Avian Medicine Virtual 2026 event for May 16, 2026, with 8 hours of RACE-approved online learning, built as an accessible option for avian veterinary professionals worldwide. That online format matters because it widens access well beyond the people who can travel to a major conference city.

AAV also describes its Avian Veterinary Clinical Competency Program, or AVCCP, as a three-tier, self-directed training series built around interactive modules, case scenarios, and quizzes. The program is aimed at day-one clinical competency for students, early-career veterinarians, and emergency-room veterinarians who want to deepen avian practice, and registration is split clearly: veterinarians and veterinary students may register for Tiers 1 through 3, while veterinary technicians and nurses may register for Tier 1 only.

Student support and professional development still run through the calendar

One of the quieter but important entries is the Georgia Fletcher Memorial Award Essay Contest for Veterinary Technician Students, with a deadline of August 15, 2026. The contest is run by the Quaker Parakeet Society and honors Georgia Fletcher, whom the organization described as an advocate of aviculture, avian medicine and research and a supporter of the society.

That contest signals something worth noting if you care about the future of parrot medicine: the pipeline is being fed from the student level up. AAV has also announced a technician and tech student conference scholarship worth about $1,500, covering conference registration, one lab, four nights of lodging, and up to a $500 travel stipend, and it has highlighted student scholarship recipients for the 2026 conference. Those support structures matter because the people who learn now are the ones who will be answering the hard questions about flock health, anesthesia, diagnostics, and emergency care later.

The fall conference circuit is where new tools surface

The biggest in-person anchor on the calendar is the 47th Annual AAV Conference & Expo, set for October 2 through 5, 2026 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas, USA. The conference pages say the call for proposals closed on February 1, 2026, with registration set to open in May, and that the event will feature new technologies, procedures, therapies, diagnostics, and products, along with chances to connect with colleagues and vendors.

For parrot owners, that kind of meeting can feel removed from the bird room, but it is where tomorrow’s standards often get sharpened. The diagnostics that later shape a clinic visit, the handling methods that later show up in a rescue intake, and the treatment ideas that become ordinary practice usually pass through these rooms first. If you follow avian care closely, Austin is the place where the specialty’s next round of tools and protocols is likely to be discussed in public.

Other 2026 dates worth keeping in view

The AAV calendar also points to several later-year meetings that round out the avian education landscape. The 2026 AZVT Annual Conference is set for September 26 to 29, 2026, the 2026 AAZV 58th Annual Conference is scheduled for October 18 to 23, 2026 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the AAVAC Conference 2026 is listed for November 26 to 28, 2026.

Taken together, those dates show that avian medicine is operating as a connected network rather than a once-a-year gathering. Between the June reproductive-health webinar, the May virtual learning option, the AVCCP training track, the student scholarship and essay contest, and the autumn conference run, the calendar reads like a year-long reminder that parrot care keeps advancing in public, practical ways.

If the June webinar is the bird on the front line, the rest of the calendar is the support system behind it: a steady stream of training, student development, and specialty meetings aimed at keeping egg-binding knowledge, clinical skill, and broader avian care moving forward together.