How can I emit animated prefabs from a particle system?

Think "Flock of birds"

I've got a prefab of a a bird that animates on a loop. Using a particle system, I can attach the base mesh, but that doesn't contain the animation. Is there a way to instantiate a prefab, rather than a mesh? If not, how would I go about scripting this? I assume I'd need to read the particles on a frame by frame basis and reposition manually instantiated prefabs. Is that correct? Thanks