Blood-feather gone bad

As I've written in posts before I have a young ringneck dove named Mr. Enya, in addition to my rock dove, Rochester and my recovering rock dove Percy, formally Fred.

Saturday morning getting ready for my part-time job at a local bird store, I noticed that Mr. Enya had a few small blood feathers that broke on his chest area, possibly when he and my foot gently collided. I put him in the cage and took him with me to the store, where as is their custom with birds in the parrot species, they suggested I should remove the offending feathers and then apply pressure as needed to stop any bleeding that occurred.

In so doing, Mr. Enya's delicate skin, almost like wet tissue paper, ripped open and blood began oozing out. I immediately called a local avian vet's office and found she wasn't in. While waiting to receive a referral to another office I called my avian vet rehabber whom the day before I'd taken an injured Canadian Goose. He said to pack the area with flour or corn meal to stop the bleeding and see if that sufficed, otherwise he would glue or suture the area closed. This treatment seemed to be working for a while, but because the area was on his chest, it was easy for Mr. Enya to reopen by stretching or preening. So when we noticed it had reopened a little while later, we re-applied flour and I rushed him to my rehabber about 20 minutes away.

He concluded the easiest way to proceed was to use Isoflurane gas to put him out and look at it more closely, clean it and reattach as necessary. Being a large animal vet and perhaps used to the assistance of non-staff persons on farm calls, he nonchalantly allowed me to not only enter the sugery room, but to assist!

I held the bluish water bottle with the bottom cut off that replaced whatever original equipment came at the end of the hose, over which he had placed a rubber surgical glove with a small hole. We inserted Mr. Enya's little head into this hole and I held him as he gently breated in the gas. Unsuspecting, I allowed him to struggle free once but regained the position and waited a little longer. Luther, the vet, began cleaning the area and assessing the damages. He decided to suture the area and by the time he was done had put about 10 sutures, he lost count he told me later, into the circular tare over a half-inch long. I got to hold the gas tube-bottle and keep the fingers of the rubber glove dam away from the working area, just under the ring of Mr. Enya's neck band on his chest. When he was done we removed him from the gas and he wrapped him up in a towel just so and showed me how to support him until he fully regained consciousness.

The whole thing took about 30 minutes and he charged me only $40! I know this would have been between $150 and $200 normally. And I plan on making a decent donation soon to his compassion fund for the wildlife rescue he does there, especially since I bring him my fair share of those.

The Canadian Goose, by the way, from the day before, was healthier than we suspected and was able to fly staight out of the fenced enclosure he put it in just that morning. The goose had what turned out to be buck shot in his leg. He did get a good anti-inflamatory shot and some antibiotics into him the day before. Maybe Luther felt bad about "Midnight" flying the coop. I was going to fix up something in my garage for his recovery upon returning from my trip on Monday.

In talking with Luther later, however, he said that trying to remove the small broken blood feather was not something he ever recommends. He said you can almost always get away with packing it with flour or cornmeal and letting it clot and it will usually continue to grow like a normal feather and be fine. Even larger wing feathers can sometimes be taped back together, supported by neighboring feathers and taped again, often growing back together and being a strong useful feather. I told my comrades back at the bird store about this alternative treatment for blood-feathers. And looking back at Mr. Enya's initial condition, one or two small broken blood feathers practically clotting on their own, I KNOW this would have been a better course of action than trying to remove these feathers. I don't know if dove skin is appeciably more delicate than that of the parrot species, even cockatiels, but I know I now have a new approach to blood feathers.

What can anyone add regarding their experience with blood-feathers in pigeons and doves?

And was being allowed to assist in the emergency surgery of your own pet as unusual an experience as it seemed at the time? I did fine at the time, on the squeamish scale, by the way, but later after getting back to the store with Mr. Enya, and telling of our adventures to some of the same customers who were there when I'd left, I was a nervous wreck!

Mr. Enya is doing fine now, not messing with the area much, flying around happily, reunited with his friend Rochester, having been separated all weekend by our taking Mr. Enya with us on a preplanned short get-away. Which turned out to be good timing for a stress-free recovery, sitting on my head in a motel room watching animal planet!

What a weekend!
Stacey

[Trees Gray]

Hi Stacey,

What an adventure, one I'm sure you do not want to repeat, but a valuable lesson was learned. In the future, We will remember packing the blood feathers with flour, rather then pull the feathers.

I'm glad Mr. Enya is fine, and what a great experience you had in the surgery.

I myself got a little sgueemish when my rehabber re- did stitches on my hooded tumbler, for the third time, yesterday. Talk about tear in the chest area, it definitely has been a challenge! An area that would normally require a stitch got three with heavy duty thread! Somehow, even though he was kept calm in small cage, he managed to rip them out!

Anyway, I just want to give thanks to these people in our lives, that we are fortunate to know, the rehabbers. I have started rehabbing myself, but the stitches part, I cannot handle myself! Treesa

[cyro51]

Thank you for sharing that experience with us, Stacey! It is great that you were that involved, it all increases your knowledge of how to treat pigeons and ours by extension.

When Piglet broke his beak and started to bleed I tried cotton wool and tissue paper, then remembered hearing on this forum that cornflour would staunch the bleed. It was is such a difficult place to apply direct pressure, but the cornflour worked fine. I was so grateful to whoever had shared that info about cornflour in the first place!

Cynthia