Another ill pigeon found!

[chriss80]

One of the pigeons that come in my garden has been very ill yesterday and today I managed to grab her and take her inside. Since yesterday she started to walk funny and now when I inspected her wing there are some bones sticking out a bit or it could be some stuck together feathers, she is a bit messy. Her flight was heavy since yesterday. I noticed her having a droopy wing for months but she always flew very well and she rarely showed the wing to be droopy so I think that is quite and old injury. The wing is broken right at the end joints (could be feathers stuck together also) but she can move it a bit. I don’t feel any broken bones on her feet, she kind of wobbles while she walks from some ware up her leg. She ate well in her cage, she is alert but she is quite skinny. She is not frighten, is just one of those birds that if you have food in your hands she forgets you are a human and she never needed any encouragement. Perhaps this could be PMV? I have Synulox and Baytril available.
I named her Blackye, picture bellow. I tried to convince her to give me another photo angle with the bad wing but it was not showing being droopy anyway and on top of that she winged flapped me and grunted at me. I keep her separate from my other pigeon in another room so no illness can be spread.

[Trees Gray]

Hi chriss.

Thank you for helping this needy bird.

Please follow the information on this link first:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=8822

Make sure she is warm and out of drafts and do provide her with a deep little (spill proof) dish to eat out of in case she does have PMV. Also, give her a small deep water dish, that she cannot get her face in and drown-if she does the upside down head tilt.

Have you noticed any other symptoms? How does the poop look?

Once she is stable have a closer look at the wing and update us.

[chriss80]

I got her nice and cosy with no drafts. I have put water in with her and she does not do any weird head movements. I have put some dried grass at the bottom of her cage and I can not tell for sure haw her poops look but I will get back at that.

[Pidgey]

Could be arthritis from a chronic Paratyphoid (or other) infection. Hard to say without more observation but my initial tendency would be to start her on Baytril. What does it look like where these feathers are stuck together? Is there any black looking stuff between the feathers?

Pidgey

[feralpigeon]

Personally, I'd lose the dried grass because it can introduce unwanted pests
into the bird's hospital setting. You could try doing a bird burrito leaving the
injured wing out and gently sponge bathing the area in question to see if
you can get a better look at what's going on w/the bird. If the bird isn't
adequately self-feeding you may need to augment the feedings w/one of the
recommended methods that you are comfortable with such as soaking puppy
kibble and placing @ the rear of the mouth so that the bird can swallow on it's
own. Make sure to keep the bird warm.

If PMV, antibiotics aren't recommended, if Paratyphoid then Baytril is the antibiotic of choice, if this is a recent injury that you may not have observed
in the making as in a cat-caught bird, Synulox would be the preferred medication.

fp

[Feefo]

Hi Chris,

You said the bones or feathers were at the end joints...which end are you referring to? Can she flap both wings or only one?

I had a wood pigeon brought to me a few weeks ago, he was unable to fly and he had these sharp boney bits sticking out by his neck and near his crop. I hadn't come across anything like it before so I took him to Hallswood and they said it was some sort of mite...I haven't ever come across a feral pigeon with articular paratyphoid or arthritis either, I don't know whether it is very common in the UK.

Obviously the Gower Hospital is out, but would you be able to have your vet check it out? I don't think it is PMV . The obe danger of taking a pigeon with PMV to a vet is that it is a notifiable disease, but my vet says that they have to be reported only if tests reveal PMV so he should be safe enough.

Cynthia

[chriss80]

Ok, I just had a better inspection of her and I just noticed 2 things:
- underneath her other wing, not the one with the bone sticking, there is where her wing meets body- I suppose that is the shoulder there is a big purple patch. Poor things, I can’t believe she was able to fly with that.
- on the back of her head slightly sideways down her neck there is a wound. Is a dried scab. Perhaps of 2 of 3 days old. Is quite big, looks like the size of a half a penny coin. It has no sign of infection, is all dried up and hard.
I see no other things on her body, I will inspect her more tomorrow and let her calm down now. She defiantly at and she has plenty of seeds in her crop. I do not know if she figure it out haw to drink the water from the little box I put it in so I just gave her a little bit of water myself with a small syringe.

[Feefo]

Hi Chris,

She really needs to be seen by a vet so that the bone that is sticking out can be dealt with. There could be infection so start her on Synulox, 1/2 tablet now then from tomorrow 1/4 tablet twice a day. Otherwise 0.2 ml of Baytril once daily.

I have had two pigeons that had a bone sticking out. One had the bone filed down and then the skin stitched over it, he was able to fly again. The other one had the dead bone trimmed by the vet because while it was sticking out the wound coudn't heal. After it was trimmed the wound healed.

Cynthia

[chriss80]

My opinion that that thing there is a bone sticking out and yes she is able to flap bout of her wing very well and flies. She is a bit of a heavy flyer though.

Pidgey there is not black thing where the bone is sticking out. There is a blackish dried hard scab on her head down the. It looks like a scab that is not infected to me and in the scab there are a few feathers tangled of that just are where the scab is.

Feralpigeon I will get rid of the grass and put toilet paper.

Cythia, it is the last joint, where the bones form the v shape right at the end and not at the shoulder. She flaps both of her wings usefully.
I will try to take her to the vet tomorrow and see what he says. I am not taking any pigeons at the Gower Hospital ever, I really think they give pigeons a fair chance.

I am more inclined to think that she has suffered some sort of accident or attacked by something.

[chriss80]

I will take her to the vet on Monday. They are closed tomorrrow.
I think I am gonna start with that Sinoulox tonight

[Pidgey]

The forward curves of the wings that sit on either side of the chest just behind or to the side of the crop (kinda' depends on the stance) are equivalent to the wrists on us. Whenever they get a wound and bleed, the blood gets into the feathers and forms some pretty hard scabs. That's what I was asking about. It's sometimes pretty difficult getting those softened and removed for more accurated assessement. They make some pretty secure dressings, too.

Is the thing on the back of her head that you're talking about slightly visible in the picture above? There's a funny feather anomaly there that could be anything--can't tell from the picture.

Pidgey

[chriss80]

Pidgey,
Yes, it is visible in the picture. Where her feathers are like that there is the scab.

[Pidgey]

I've had birds here fly lopsided due to one wing not rotating properly from a long arthritic process. When you capture them and then manipulate their wings, they often won't rotate as easily upward or as far. In short, they begin to get stiff. You've certainly got the probability of an injury and sometimes that can be a hard thing to say for sure. I've got that one up in the loft that I got as a squeaker under an underpass that had a burst Paratyphoid boil on his elbow. There was a trail of watery blood oozing out and we got him healed up from that within a few weeks. The wing still hangs low to this day and the joint itself is still enlarged. He flies a little but he'd never make it "out there".

It's sometimes kinda' hard to be sure on whether a bone's sticking out or not for a few reasons, one of them being that there skin is so thin out on the wing that it's almost translucent. There are quite a few little downy feathers out there on the wrist so you don't usually get to see in there very easily. It might help you to study the skeletal drawings here:

http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/skeleton.html

...and see if you can identify what bone might be sticking out.

Pidgey

[chriss80]

Pidgey, seems to be radius to radiale. There it feels a bit like a lump with a pointy thing out. Feathers are so close together and I can’t see a thing. Could be maybe a pointy feather there but is too thick. She is not bothered that I am touching it, she might not show it off. Is just so hard to tell.

[Pidgey]

You can swab a little rubbing alcohol on the feathers of that area and render it easier to see. Don't put on too much or the bird will get drunk.

Pidgey