Question for other Bird Rescuers/Rehabbers

[Pixie]

Hi,
I am wild bird rehabber in S. California. A few months ago someone brought me a fledgling pigeon suffering from severe head trauma due to, I am guessing, a crow attack.

She has healed up well physically. Still there is somthing not quite "right" about her. She flies backwards and cannot go very far. The strangest thing though is that she will not self feed, and she is way past the time when she should be eating on her own. I have rehabbed hundreds of birds over the years, including a good amount of pigeons and have never encountered a bird that just would not self feed, due to any reason.

I am thinking it is very likely due to her brain damage, but I have never heard or experienced a case like this. I was wondering, to any other bird rehabbers/rescuers out there if you have ever heard of this ?

Her quality of life is great, she gets around well and is quite sweet. I am perfectly fine with tube feeding her twice a day for her life as I have recently stopped rehabbig and so have more time (due to the birth of a baby and our move to a fulltime rv traveling life), but I was just hoping maybe someone had heard of a case like this and could tell me that there was hope for her. ~ pixie

[feralpigeon]

Hi Pixe,

It does sound as though your bird is having CNS issues and they may well
be related to the head trauma injury, or perhaps a predator bird was able
to attack because the bird was sick/debilitated to begin with. It sounds as
though you are providing excellent care for your pigeon and could be that in
time some of the symptoms may reverse themselves. Regardless, if feeding
is a non-issue for you and the bird otherwise has a quality of life that is bringing
both you the caregiver and the bird joy of life, then I'd say this is one very fortunate bird to have found you and been taken under your wing. Thank you
for helping this little one out.

fp

[pdpbison]

Hi Pixie,



This may have been a PPMV youngster/Squeaker when you got them, and their symptoms, especially if subtle, could have been lost among those of the injurys otherwise.

I gather the symptoms of the so-called PPMV illness, tend to be different in different areas of the Country.

I am in Las Vegas.

My own PPMV Hen ( feral, who was an old gal when I got her, possibly well into her teens for all I know, when afflicted) eventually, after a long time of being a 'floor-Bird', resumed flying, and flew backwards.


Eventually she got very good at flying backwards, and forwards, and doing rather Humming Bird like kinds of hoverings and flying so she could move slowly to or from things while hovering, in the manner which Humming Birds do with Flowers.

She is a large Bird for having been a feral, not huge, but large...


Thank God she ate like a Horse from the get-go, even with all her spasms and outrageous neck and head movements and protracted 'Statue' crouchings ( you could pick her up and hold her any which way, and she would not move a bit, she was often just like a "Statue' of a Pigeon) , she loved to eat, and ate a brimming full Tea Cup of Seeds a day, with poops to prove it.

Now, possibly, because she was grown up long before her illness, the illness did not interfere with her in that department...where yours, being little, did not know how to eat yet, and possibly the illness interfered with his learning to do so...if this illnesss is apossibliy in his case.

Here in the south West, the ( what I take to be ) PPMV Pigeons seem to have a frialy narrow range of neurological symptoms, and appear healthy in every way, and eat by themselves just fine, BUT for their various head and neck movements or 'statue' crouchings which make pecking more tedious or time consuming to get a nice meal into themselves, but they manage, none-the-less...also they tend to be very VERY shy...and can takle quite a while to win over.


Did your little one ever do any crouching 'low' postures, 'statue' postures of crouching low...head twisting, 'Star Gazing' or looking at things with his neck extended out low and staright, and head turned so it was almost upsidedown? One eye 'up'?

These are the kinds of things I see which I associate with the PPMV...

And in my albeit limited experience, the MMPV as it seems to manifest here in the Southern Mojave, ( or such as I took to be PPMV, ) is the only thing I have to associate 'flying backwards' with...and at that, only with my survivor Hen.

I have two Pigeons presently who I take to have the PPMV...they are in Cages of course pending however long it is till I decide to let them out and roam around. Poops are good, they manage to eat, and they do their various odd things...

So I have no idea how they will fly...


Phil
Las Vegas

[feralpigeon]

Originally Posted by pdpbison

Hi Pixie,
..........

Did your little one ever do any crouching 'low' postures, 'statue' postures of crouching low.....

Phil
Las Vegas

Momba crouches low and stays that way whenever he hears Diesel moan, such
a bad boy.

fp

[Feefo]

I can't remember who it was , possibly ray'n'judy, (maybe other old timere will help here) who had a pigeon that had been tube fed for a couple of years and simply would not eat on his own.

When the tube feeding was stopped it started to eat on its own again.

Cynthia

[pdpbison]

Originally Posted by feralpigeon

Momba crouces low and stays that way whenever he hears Diesel moan, such
a bad boy.

fp

Lol...

And twitches her wing Tips, too, I imagine...!

Now thats a different thing altogether...!


Phil
l v

[feralpigeon]

Originally Posted by cyro51

I can't remember who it was , possibly ray'n'judy, (maybe other old timere will help here) who had a pigeon that had been tube fed for a couple of years and simply would not eat on his own.

When the tube feeding was stopped it started to eat on its own again.

Cynthia

Would seem that if the bird can drink water on its' own, should be able to
eat on its' own as well. Could be yet another situation of learned dependance
which could be unlearned as well.

fp

[TAWhatley]

Originally Posted by cyro51

I can't remember who it was , possibly ray'n'judy, (maybe other old timere will help here) who had a pigeon that had been tube fed for a couple of years and simply would not eat on his own.

When the tube feeding was stopped it started to eat on its own again.

Cynthia

Yes, it was raynjudy and their Princess Allie .. If I remember correctly Allie was self feeding for a long while, stopped eating for no reason that was ever determined, tube fed for at least a year, and then started eating on her own again.

Terry

[Maggie-NC]

We had a PMV pigeon that we hand fed for over two years who would never eat on her own.

[Pidgey]

Pixie,

Go ahead and check the bird for blindness (if you haven't already) by way of shining a bright light in one eye at a time, on and off, to look for a pupillary reflex response.

Pidgey

[Pixie]

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses. I never noticed any signs of PMV in her, " star gazing" ,head twisting or any kind of balance problems. Like I said, she came in quite young ( an older squeaker but no squeaking )at a time when I believe most pigeons are not fully weaned. I dont know if it possible that she could get full blown PMV , partially recover,then be attacked by a crow, in the short time since she had been born. She would have had to been sick from the time she was a nestling, and I doubt she would have made it to a fledgling with pmv. Then again, as you said maybe it was a subtle case of pmv. Is there such a thing ? I have only dealt with severe cases, and very few at that.

I have tried cutting her tube feeding down to one a day and she begins losing a good deal of weight . The intresting thing is, she does pick at seeds, quite a bit ( have never seen her drink water) but does not actually swallow them. She cannot seem to make the connection. She is in an aviary with another pigeon during the day in hopes that she will learn from him ( a large King pigeon named Yeti..up for adoption if anyone is intrested !), but so far no luck.

She is VERY docile and sooo sweet, very mellow, loves beak rubs and head scratches. Ocasionally she flaps vigorously doing those hummingbird moves like someone mentioned, but does not get far off the ground, despite the fact that her wings are in perfect working order.

Thanks again folks ~ Pixie

[pdpbison]

Hi Pixie,



Well...was just-a-thought anyway, as for the flying backwards stuff...



I dunno...nerve injurys can indeed take a long time to ammend, and I have seen that many times with legs, wings and co-ordination issues resulting from head injurys or neck and back injurys.


Probably upping the finely minced fresh ( well washed ) Greens ( Chards, Endives, Cilantro, Parsely, Kales) which in her case could be added to her formula...and upping the semi-dried 'Goji-Berrys' ( soak them for an hour or two, cut into thirds or halves and 'Seed-Pop' them ) in her diet would be of benifit...adding a little powdered Brewer's Yeast also, ( you can just roll the hydrated Berrys in a slurry of fresh Olive Oil and some brewer's Yeast before Seed-Popping them ) which has various "B" Vitamines in it...letting her have direct Sunshine now and then...these things have seemed to help in my experience...


Good luck..!


Phil
Las Vegas

[pdpbison]

Hi Pixie,


As for her pecking...you could try guiding her Beak into a full ( traditional small one ounce capacity ) Shot Glass of small whole Seeds...Canary Seed or Finch Seed...


keep your finger tips on the sides of her Beak as best you can, or at least one finger tip anyway...and, she very likely will 'gobble' just as if she were eating from her parent's Throat.


This - even if she can not see - might just help her to realize the tactile feeling of eating this way, and with the intimacy of Beak and tiny Shot Glass, things are well defined in that way...and with however many occasions of repeating it, she just might start eating these Seeds by hovering her Beak just at their surface and sort of taking gobble-bites.


At least that is what sighted youngsters do, anyway...and the next stage with this then, is they are pecking Seeds from a low 'hovering' Beak, then pecking them with a higher Beak poise and so on.

With sighted youngsters this whole progression can be done in an half an hour with some breaks inbetween sessions, or done in ten minutes even, with many of them.


Going from only having been fed by parents, to pecking Seeds effectively...



Even if it takes her a week or something to get from 'A' to 'B'...it would be well worth it..! And I think she will do it in less time than that.


Thats what I would do anyway, and I feel confident it will work for you and her, too...


Good luck with this!


Phil
Las Vegas

[pdpbison]

Hi Pixie,


I meant to add a link to some images of a couple days ago, where one of my little ones was guided through the Shot-Glass-Seed-Gobble and was soon Pecking wonderfully without my fingers needing to be on his Beak anymore.


http://public.fotki.com/PhilBphil/ju...2007-squeaker/


All in all, his progression took maybe ten or fifteen minutes, spread over an evening and the next day in three sessions.

If a youngster is 'nuzzleing' then this is a very reliable way to guide them into self feeding by their own Pecking.

So as for me, I then provide Seeds which they peck on their own while I supervise and comment or just be with them close...


While I also provide 'Baby Feeds' of formula, gradually tapering off to maybe one a day then one every other day, once they are of post fledgling age, till they are fifty odd days old or whenever it is they elect to have no more of it.



Phil
Las Vegas