Another ill pigeon found!

[Feefo]

Cristina, I really don't like that bone sticking out, please keep an eye open for infection.

One of my birds had a bone poking out and as it was dead bone the vet trimmed it back without anaesthetic so that the flesh around it could heal properly.

I have copied these excerpts from various old threads by Tara (BaconBit). This still makes me cry , but I think it explains my fears better than I could explain them.

3 January 2002
I found a very hurt pigeon last friday and have taken him , I think it is a him; in. I took him to the vet on Monday and found out that in addition to having an old wing injury which has made him not able to fly; he also had a new fracture to his wing!! I have no idea how he could have survived outside very long not being able to fly and all but somehow he did. He is also VERY friendly!!!

3 February 2002
Hi all!! Well Bacon went to the vet on friday to get his bandage of of his wing and it had not healed at all!!!!!!! He still has bone sticking out of his wing in two spots. It does not seem to bother him and he is eating and drinking still. The vet sais that she thinks these are old injurys and will never heal. She alos had mentioned amputating it. Has anyone had any experience with this??? She said that it is very expensive and VERY life threatening which is more important to me. Like I said, it does not SEEM to bother him...he seems fat and happy. The vet said that he could probebly stay like this and be very happy!!! So HELP!!! What do you all think???

12 September 2002
I have noticed that Ms. Bacon has developed a hard bump on the shoulder of her injured wing and it is hanging a little lower. Now she has been using it alot more to come up and down the stairs and she is actually getting good at getting on the couch. Could this bump just be becuase the wing is getting stronger or should I be concerned about something else possibly being wrong???

13 September 2002
Ms. Bacon died...I am in utter shock...My baby girl is gone....I cant believe my baby is gone....I am a little upset right now to explain what has happened...but when I am a little more able to think I will let you all know...I feel like I cant breathe without her...she is gone...

14 September 2002
When I took my little girl in Wednesday night the lump turned out to be a massive infection. The vet then lifted up her injured wing and there was a really big bone sticking out of it. It was probebly as big as my thumb and it too was really infected. So the vet told me she would have to have surgery to remove some of that bone and to clean out the infected "pocket" she had. I was really scared and I didnt want to let my little angel go. I asked her 50 times if my little girl was going to be ok and she told me she would be fine. Well she was not fine. She didnt make it through the night and now my angel is gone..... my world is gone.... I am in total shock....I want my baby back.....

Tara

It is not clear whether it was anaesthesia or infection that killed Bacon, or a combination of infection and surgery...but being alert to infection and having antibiotics available can help.

[Reti]

What a tragic story, Cynthia.
My Fanny had a bone sticking out, just half an inch. I took her to the vet to have the wing amputated, but he recommended first trimming it and see if the skin grown over. She didn't say a peep while he was trimming the bone, so I guess it didn't hurt her much. She came home with antibiotics and in a week the skin healed over the exposed bone. Two months later she was flying. She is not a great flier, but in the room she does ok. She can get wherever she wants to.

Reti

[chriss80]

Cynthia, that is a really tragic story and scary. I just do not have the doctors here that know something about it, they mean good but they just don’t deal with birds. A bone sticking out can not be a good thing and hers defiantly pointed out of her skin. Is no infections as far I can see. I would not like something bad to happen to Blackye. Is there a way of sending Blackye to you trough some sort postal service? I will pay for everything so she can also be sent to the doctor and treated. I can not imagine haw much would all cost but I can gather up the money by selling things on ebay.

[Feefo]

Hi Chris,

You can send healthy pigeons via Amtrak, but it is a long journey during which they can't have water or food.

Are any of these avian vets close to you?

E Barbour-Hill
Tan-y-Coed, High Street,
Penlon, Bangor,
Gwynedd. Tel: 01248 355674
E Barbour-Hill

Rhianfa Vet Centre
83 Russell Road,
Rhyl Tel: 01745 332553
J Hickerton

Valley Vet Group
Gabalfa Vet Surgery,
180 Merthyr Road,
Cardiff. Tel: 02920 529444
Mark Evans

[chriss80]

The first 2 are very far away! The 3th one, the Cradiff one is rechable, I think is about an hour and a half or 2 hours drive by car depending on and roads trafic and the time to travel.

[chriss80]

Oh and the nearest Amtrak local depot is quite far away, are they the only ones?

[chriss80]

I got to see when I can go to Cardiff with Blackye, I do not drive and I depend on other people taking me there.
Weird thing, the bone is not sticking out anymore at all. I don’t feel it of see anything there where it was at all.
Blackye is moving her tail up and down a bit. Should I deworm her, I have avicas and moxidectin .
I have force feed her today also.
For some odd reason Blackye smell of milk, her feathers maybe, don’t know. I washed her about a week ago with water and a bit of vinegar in it and that would not cause her to smell of milk. I am quite worry about this.

[chriss80]

All right, milk mystery solved. It was some gloves I touched her with that left the smell. lol

[Reti]

Originally Posted by chriss80

All right, milk mystery solved. It was some gloves I touched her with that left the smell. lol

LOL, I was thinking hard what it could be.
How about the bone sticking out, is it all gone?

Reti

[chriss80]

Hi Reti,

The bone is completely gone now, it must of retracted back. Is all smooth now, and both wings in that area feel identical I can not see there well due to all of her feathers and she is not letting me do so either, I think she might be sensitive there now, she never reacted before when I was touching the area or the bone. I feel really tempted to just cut all the feathers in the area right now so I can see better but I do not want her to get cold or something. I have not been letting her fly around since I got her, except when she escaped me, is enough room in the cage for her to flap her wings.

[Pidgey]

Well, protruding broken bones don't usually retract on their own. It mighta' been something else entirely.

Pidgey

[chriss80]

Hi Pidgey,
I thought about it and perhaps a broken bone/wing was not the correct term to use. The bone was not broken in 2 or something like that. What appeared to me was that the bone was out of its cartilage and poked out trough the skin ( no skin covering it at all when it was out). More like dislocated maybe, or broken out of cartilage.

[Pidgey]

You oughta' try looking at their wing joints through the feathers sometime while they're wet with soapy water--their skin is so thin and translucent that you can see everything as though it didn't have any skin on it. When bones do actually protrude and stay that way, skin doesn't usually grow back over them (without help, that is).

Pidgey

[chriss80]

Pidgey, I am going to look tomorrow in the day light. I can see pretty much everything but what is in that place. Same with the other wing, is just the spot where the wing make a V point end and is a pain to see with all those feathers in my way.

[Reti]

What does the skin where the bone was protruding look like?

Reti