Bunches Of New Pictures ..

[TAWhatley]

Sorry to have gone a little crazy .. guess I needed some cheering up today:

Here are some pictures from today: http://www.rims.net/2005Jun26

Onyx and the Gemini Twins: Onyx is a beautiful young pigeon whose
foot and a portion of the leg was eaten by a rat that got into the cage
occupied by Onyx, the parents, and Onyx's sibling. Onyx belongs to a
friend of mine and is here with me while the stump is being treated by
Dr. Lee. Onyx is seemingly unfazed by the rather horrific injury. The
Gemini Twins are two orphaned babies I am raising.

Baby sparrows are all orphans that I am hand raising.

The older starling has a broken left leg and a broken and droopy right
wing. The juvenile starling is one of many that I am raising this season.

The six little Pekin ducklings were classroom hatchlings that need
to find homes now that school is out. They range in age from about
a week and a half up to three weeks .. very sweet babies.

Then there is Eddie fresh from a bath. His humans came to visit
him today and were very pleased at how much better he is doing.
Of course Eddie's little yellow duckling friend is right there checking
things out.

Next are a couple of pics of FanTastic, Castor and FanFan's offspring.

Then a newcomer .. a Crested Runner mix with a nasty fishing line
entanglement injury on one leg. She is keeping the old Pekin girl
company. Then the young Egyptian Goose I have been raising ..
almost all grown up now.

Next comes Squiggy, the second most senior pigeon here. Squiggs
is 14 and has a badly splayed leg. Obviously someone loved Squiggs
a great deal to have taken such good care of a splay legged homer
for all those years. I was never able to locate Squiggy's owner, so he
is now a permanent resident here.

Lastly is the latest offspring of my beloved Ptero & Jewel (who sneaked
another one past me) ..

Enjoy!

Terry

[Trees Gray]

Hi Terry,

Thank you for sharing the pictures. The are all so adorable, the baby ducks are just too cute, they look like toys. The baby pigeons look great!

Glad to see Eddie up and around, what a difference!

Fan Tastic, is just everything the name implies.

I'm sure they brought a little "susnshine" to the day, after the loss of the goose. ..and you are definitely their shining light!

Give them all a hug from me!

Treesa

[melissasue1968]

Wow!!! Those are awsome!!! You must be busy 24/7!!!
God bless you!

[Lady Tarheel]

Hi Terry-

Having rehabbed both songbirds and pigeons I know how hard you work. I had to stop doing songbirds because they were really more time consuming than the pigeons but pigeons were my first love anyhow.

I wanted to mention a problem we had with a pigeon whose leg had to be amputated. The vet had to remove the leg next to its body and we were not sure it could fly after it grew up (it was a baby when we got it). Before it reached maturity it did fly some but after gaining weight it could not fly at all and was confined to the ground. We tried many things to help this little guy - we put him in a big plastic box for awhile, but he kept beating his wings so much we tried him in the aviary. We made him a little house inside the aviary where he could jump/crawl away from the other pigeons and that worked awhile until we found him one morning very bloody from beating his wings against the side of the cage. We finally bought a cat bed that was open on top and soft, and started keeping him in the house. I changed his towels that lined the bottom every day - I also put an extra smaller towel in there that he used to prop up on. He stayed in the family room with us and we felt he was a member of the family for over two years. Each night my husband would take him outside and walk him around the yard and let him "fly" in his hands. He would settle down in his recliner with the pigeon on his lap and they would both go to sleep. It was a sight!. Sadly, we lost Silver just two weeks ago. He had been fine as usual during the day and when we picked him up in the afternoon to walk him outside started convulsing and just died quickly. We believe it was cancer because the vet had to operate on some tumors when he was only a few months old. We'll never forget this wonderful bird. I really didn't mean to get into all this except to point out that it may not be that easy to care for your bird as he grows older. It is really fortunate that he has a stump because that could make all the difference in the world. Our vet said she tried to keep some part of Silver's let intact but it was too badly mangled.

Re the Starlings. Everyone should raise a Startling. They are the prettiest babies of all

[TAWhatley]

Hi Lady Tarheel,

Thanks for the post about your beloved pigeon. Onyx lost the foot and about 1 inch of the leg, so s/he is better off in that regard than Silver. Onyx seems to be a very healthy and happy youngster in spite of the unfortunate injury. I suspect there will be some "challenges" in caring for this one, but I doubt is will be any rougher than caring for Squiggy with his horribly splayed leg.

Terry

[Garye]

I like Squiggy the best. What in the world is all that stuff all over his face? Can it be removed? Does he have trouble eating? Looks a lot like what another pigeon called Blackie had.

I like pigeons but I'm naive when it comes to what kind of diseases they get.

[Pigeonpal2002]

Hi Garye,

That is just the "normal" cere on Squiggy's face. Some breeds have very large cere growths like that and also when a pigeon gets older, sometimes it grows more too.

[Garye]

That's a normal cere?! My God I must be naive. I've never seen a feral with a cere like that around here. It's amazing how they can eat with that all on their face like that. But if it's normal, I guess it's the way it's supposed to be. The pigeon is still cute, of course, just unusual with that stuff all over it.

[Lin Hansen]

Hi LadyTarheel,

Thank you so much for sharing the story about Silver...It was very touching. And I'm very sorry for your loss.

Linda

[TAWhatley]

Originally Posted by Garye

I've never seen a feral with a cere like that around here. It's amazing how they can eat with that all on their face like that.

Garye .. you probably never will see a feral pigeon with a beakload like the Squiggs .. he is 14 years old .. I can't imagine any feral managing to live that long. My Traveler, who is 18, still has a very slim, trim, and stylish cere. Like people, pigeons all age in their own unique way .. Squiggs has a big schnoz .. Traveler doesn't .. I had two other oldsters who were adopted by a good friend that had the large cere growth like Squiggy .. I thought they were Dragoons at first.

Terry

[pdpbison]

Hi Terry,


Two of the ferals in my wild flock here, one, who had both thighs broken who I helped out by suspending him in a sling for a long time, and named 'Sling Bird'...

The other, who lost a foot from string, the foot was dangleing by a bit os skin merely, and ruined, when I found her, who my girlfriend named 'Stubby'...

Both of those, I helped or convelesced in 1993-1994, and they look as youthful now as they did then.

Sling Bird I am sure is a male...Stubby, a female. Both smooth blue bar ferals, light color bodys, dark wing bars...youthful looking and bright, all these wild years now.

Who knows how old they were when I had them in here to help them?

So, you never know with some of them!

...seems they can live a long time, even here under these harsh conditions of urban wasteland with so little food and water.


Phil
Las Vegas

[TaylorGS]

Hi I saw that Juvenile European Starling. I had caught one 3 days ago. It had 2 fractured wings. It died yesterday. I didn't even know I had those kinds of birds here. I had never seen one.
Taylor