Echo's Haven
Macaw Rescue
Sanctuary
The Complete
Bird Community
Our goal is to provide a free-flight home for formerly abused, unwanted or problem Macaws.
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Echo's Haven |
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Our goal is to provide a free-flight home for formerly abused, unwanted or problem Macaws. |
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Wing, Nail and Beak
Management
The Bird and Animal Hospital
12521 So. Dixie Hwy, Miami FL 33156
Thomas L Goldsmith, DVM MS
305/259-6677
What I am going to discuss this month is so important yet so frequently misunderstood. A large number of my emergency calls concern a bloody wing, tail, chest or beak Accidents will happen and with some understanding of the cause and treatment can be easily managed. But the majority of the traumas could have been prevented.
Since it is so important, I would like to discuss wings and wing trimming first. Why trim wings in the first place? It may seem more natural, and more beautiful to allow a bird free flight in the house, but it is essentially inviting disaster. Your bird will find the most toxic item, most valuable piece of woodwork, a seemingly but not open sliding glass door or fastest ceiling fan. Free flight makes it nearly impossible to keep up with your bird’s activities in the house.
What you want to maintain and protect is the bird’s ability to flutter from point to point, or to safely and smoothly parachute to the ground.
From the tip of the wing inwards to the wrist (or first wing joint), there are ten long flight feathers, and the only feathers that should ever be cut.
When you trim a baby bird’s feathers for the first time, it is not necessary to cut more than five or six feathers on each side. As the bird becomes stronger, you can always trim once more. But once you have cut off the full ten primary flight feathers, that bird will fall like a ton of bricks and hurt itself; and there will be no solution until it molts its feathers for the first time. Think of it as a haircut, in that you can always cut more if necessary.
Some people like to leave the outermost two feathers uncut so that they fold over the back and look nicer. This is called a cosmetic trim. My feeling is that leaving isolated feathers like that increases the risk of the wing catching in the bars and breaking the wrist. But it is a personal preference.
One of the most common emergency calls involves a bleeding wing or tail. It is a growing feather that has cracked, or even broken off. A mature feather shaft is clean and empty, like a writing quill, or a feather you might find on the ground. When it is in the growing stage however, the quill or shaft is black blue/black or bright pink. It contains numerous blood vessels, and nerves. If one of these feathers should be broken or chewed, there will be an impressive amount of blood (it always seems like there is more than there really is). The typical scenario is one of a bird that hurts but now sees its owner getting excited and scared, trying to grab him with a towel perhaps, but generally "freaking out". This inevitably gets the bird all excited, which further raises his blood pressure, causes him to climb around the cage more, and/or flap his wings.
It is no surprise that the bleeding will not stop. The broken feather can be grabbed lightly, for 10-15 minutes until the blood has a chance to clot. But far more effective in these cases is to allow the bird to calm down so that its blood pressure drops and the blood has a chance to clot. This is most easily accomplished by putting the bird in absolute darkness, for example in a bathroom with no windows.
Leave him there for 20 minutes. Leave him alone. It is not easy to do, but have faith. Birds would be extinct by now if broken blood feathers were guaranteed not to bleed so much. The key here is to defuse and calm the situation.
The next day, if the feather is badly broken, the base can be grabbed with a surgical instrument and slid out, but it can be tricky and painful and should best be done with professional help. Pulling out only slightly cracked and almost mature feathers will only start the process over from scratch and you will have another two weeks of danger.
Even with the best wing trim possible, birds will fly into windows or fall on the floor and crack the tip of their beaks. If it is just the tip and only slightly cracked, you may find that you bird will not eat, will not climb, will not pick up anything, and generally behaves like he is in pain. A cracked beak is like a broken tooth and it hurt a lot.
If cracked a little higher or deeper, he may be gushing drops of blood from the beak tip. In many ways this is another case of high blood pressure making the bleeding worse. But a deeply split beak may cause a bird to bleed to death. It is not the pain, but the unstoppable bleeding that you must concern yourself with. The end of the beak can be "corked" or plugged using a mass of softened soap. Scrape this from the underside of a bar of soap from the bathroom. This technique can also be used as first aid for a bleeding nail.
Lastly I want to say something about African Grey parrots and split chests. Flying down to the ground quickly is an instinctive defense mechanism to hide in the undergrowth against flying predators. When the wings are cut too much and/or the floor is harder than the jungle undergrowth, the skin is split over the ridge of breastbone known as "the keel". It can be minor or it can be a terrible split. Either way it will not heal over on its own and must be sewn closed surgically. If the wings are over cut, it is more likely that the chest is going to first be split open again the next time he takes a fall.
Sometimes the most important aid in an emergency is knowledge about what is happening. I hope this can give some peace of mind in some future inevitable situation.
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