This is a weird one...

[Pidgey]

I was watching a sick one in my local flock during the tail end of last week. It was always on the roof with the others but staying a bit off to the side, humped up, occasionally throwing up and fluffed as well. For a few days, there was no way on earth to catch it. However, I finally found it in the lawn on Sunday, still able to fly but vulnerable enough to be caught by an experienced person.

Partially emaciated and a look down the mouth revealed what looked like a canker lesion at the back of the choanal slit (it's the cleft in the upper palate). It seemed a bit different to me in that it also had kind of a dark black center. There was also a lesion further down in the throat on the bottom side, but behind (lower than) the glottis (opening of the airway). That lesion was yellowish like typical canker lesions, but has a rough look about it. There are miniscule hills, valleys, peaks and the color varies more than a typical canker lesion. It would make you think more of candidiasis except that doesn't seem to be it either (can't find a hint of budding yeasts in the smears).

So, in true panic, I've treated him with Amprolium (Corid--for Coccidiosis) because initially there wasn't enough solids to even do a fecal; Metronidazole for the little bit of true canker present; Baytril for the usual suspects that Met doesn't get; and Nystatin for yeasts anyhow. Did I mention that I also hit him with Levamisole in there for a day or so to worm him?

What I'm pretty sure has happened to the poor fellow (the result not the cause) is that his GI has been scrapped from stem to stern. He had a load of stuff in the crop which still hasn't worked out in all this time (5 days now). He has also been going through water (it's been going through him, anyhow) like it's been going out of style (kinda' makes you think of heavy metal poisoning). He also does a funny thing--you can give him a load of thin Kaytee and it won't go through unless you give him the water to drink, too. He also stands kinda' up tall and leaning a bit back to do that to, I guess, let gravity work.

So, he obviously doesn't have ANY GI motility. It's probably too messed up for that now. So, besides the meds, what I've learned to do is manage his water intake periods. I give him the Kaytee and give him a quick smaller drink afterward. Then, I take the water away for a few hours to let the food actually digest. After that, he gets more water to push it out and make way for the next load. So far, he's holding his own but this has been a really strange deal. Maybe we've seen things similar before in the weird stances for some of the sick birds but haven't realized why they were doing it. I still don't know but this deal ain't over yet. Wish him luck. The worst part is I have to go away for the weekend and the neighbor kid is going to have to do the feeding. At least I think we've got the method worked out.

Pidgey

[pdpbison]

Hi Pidgey,



Some of this sounds familiar...


I have seen some possible Canker in throats which was very funny looking, more like a slime mold or shiny, yellow, moulded-to-fit plastic stuff...this was more difficult to abate than regular looking Canker in throats, and I did best with the 'Berimax' with these.


Anyway, yeeeeesh, poor fellow...


How about the ACV-Water for drinking and formula mixing, for this situation?


I think it is bound to help...!


"Nutrical", generously added to the 'K-T', also will do him a world of good...digests easily, chock full of great stuff for his system and getting some calories and enzymes, easy to tube when mixed in formula...and, also a good slug of Goji-Berry juice or concentrate in the formula...


Skip the weekend thing and stay home..!


He needs you!


Phil
Las Vegas

[Pidgey]

Well, it's not an ordinary weekend so skipping it isn't an option.

As to Trichomoniasis (Canker), I'd have felt better about it being that one if only I'd found some in a swab smear or fecal. I just didn't. Frankly, it's the utter lack of shiny-ness of the lesions that's most worrisome. The little one in the choana gave up and left in one day. The very large one further down has a dry look about it. To tell the truth, I'd tend more toward thinking it was a chemical burn from having eaten granulated lawn fertilizer. I've no idea if that ever happens but I've always wondered.

I really only posted about this because in order to offer a thought about the bird's behavior in case anyone ever sees something like it. I only finally came to the idea that that's why the bird was drinking and standing like that after having watched it for several days. He's upchucked precious little of the stuff that's in the crop and you can feel several bits in there like corn and peas.

Frankly, it's tough to say how it's going to end up but it could be anywhere from a ton of scar tissue throughout the GI to the point that he'd need to be fed Kaytee for the rest of his life just to manage standing around, to the opposite extreme of complete recovery.

What certainly wouldn't work in this bird's case is solid food. So far, he can neither grind it up nor push it through. Personally, my feelings are that the most significant thing I've done is feed him the Kaytee and learn how to properly do it for his condition, which is still completely uncertain. He does look better today than he has all week--he was one real sadsack when I finally got him and now he looks like a fairly regular pigeon and standing proudly to boot (but he has to).

He actually shunned the heat of the heat lamp, though. I kinda' wondered if the water actually had a cooling effect. If you'll remember, that one bird that I got that almost had the leg severed off was standing in the water, probably more to cool the intense fever of the leg and surrounding tissue than anything else. And BB, Moxie's bird with all the feather and necrotic garbage stuffed into the leg wound, ultimately did the same thing by way of standing in her water dish. Maybe this bird was using the water to cool his GI, just don't know.

Pidgey

[TAWhatley]

Hi Pidgey,

I hope this one will pull through for you. It is a weird case. Best of luck to you and this pijjie.

Terry

[pdpbison]

Hi Pidgey,


Hope I did not appear disjunctive or annoying there...sorry...


The term 'lesion' when applied to actual 'things' which exist ON the flesh or tissue, as Canker 'cubes' or Canker appearing as 'yellow, small curd cottage cheeze lumps' are sometimes referred to as "lesions"...

Verses 'lesions' meaning a disruption of tissue or injury to it where no foreign colony or firm exudae or organism-infestation-mass or small organic yet foreign objects are there at all.

So, I was imagining you were describing actual things ON his throat tissue, and not chemical burns "to" the tissue, so I did not have the same picture you did, since I am in no position to see it like you are, with the Bird in front of me.


I too worry about them eating chemical fertalizers, snail poison pellets, and other small seed-size nastys...


What about some "Pepto-Bismall" for his woes? Any chance that might answer some of it?

What are the usual antidotes for say Ammonium Nitrate?


Is there any smell or odor to his breath or open mouth?


Any smell to the Bird globally?


Most fertalizers, once damp, will have some smell to them...


Best wishes..!


Good luck..!


Phil
Las Vegas

[Pidgey]

Oh, I wasn't grousing, I was more just saying that I sure didn't have much, if any, idea what this was. Since I'd been watching him for several days, I was kinda' of the impression that something had done quite a bit of damage and didn't even need to be there anymore. He did have a slight sour-crop smell for that first day but he's been odorless ever since. For all I know, this could be the beginning of a nasty case of PMV with a bad hit to the GI and kidneys.

He really is doing a lot better now. He's standing on a brick and I just caught him reaching up with one foot and scratching his face for a bit. That's so far from what he felt like doing three days ago that I nearly danced a jig. You gotta' wonder about yourself when something like that makes your day.

Anyhow, the training session with the neighbors went well and I made them feed him so they'd get it. I'm going to leave medicated Kaytee powder in prepackaged meals with the medicated water and a small measure so that mixing will be a breeze. He's mostly going to be on Nystatin and Metronidazole (powdered and in the Kaytee) and a Coccidiostat in the water.

Pidgey

[jazaroo]

Hi Pidgey

Sounds to me like you are covering your bases well, I as well wonder sometimes about them eating lawn fertilizer and such.

The only two things I can think of are:

He's upchucked precious little of the stuff that's in the crop and you can feel several bits in there like corn and peas.

perhaps doing a crop flush to get what is in there and not going through out. The bird I had, that had GI issues last year, needed this to be done a few times when I first was trying to figure out what was going on with her. Things always improved a lot, in terms of mobility, for her crop afterward. The other thing was the vet prescribeds some Reglan for her, .50mg more or less (I say more or less because he prescribed 5mg tablets that I didvided into 4 and then divided these into halfs' again, the best I could, and disolved a piece into 1mL of water and tubed), one half hour before feeding her her Kay-Tee and this helped her dramatically in having things move through at a more normal rate.

Good luck with the little guy,

Ron

[Larry_Cologne]

Hello Pidgey and all,

Quote from an earlier post of mine from November 6, 2006 11:27 PM German Central European Time:

I did a postmortem dissection on pigeon Carter last week in an attempt to find out why he was making unusual (to me) motions with his head and neck, moving his head from right to left, while a small mass or bulge in his crop the size of an olive went from right to left. (Imagine trying to move your Adam's apple/larynx to the side of your neck). At the time I first saw him do it, I felt -- perhaps timidly, or not thoroughly enough -- but detected nothing unusual. His breast/crop area felt firm. He had food, or some obstruction such as hard french fries, volume equivalent to a walnut, in his crop (and proventricula).

In order to move his head and neck in such a manner, he had to raise up and stretch (his neck) a bit, a minor detail I failed to add. A bit of a clockwise, circular motion with his head when the pigeon is viewed from the front. Raise the head/stretch the neck, then lower the head/shorten the neck to try to push the mass to the pigeon's left.

Later I read somewhere (on PT?) that when tube or crop needle feeding a bird, the feeder should aim for the bird's right side of the throat, since the trachea (tracheal opening at the base of the tongue) is on the bird's left side of te neck and the crop hangs to the right of the neck. In my linked necropsy photos the relative position of the trachea to the spinal column is evident.

I still have a piece of the stuff I removed from his crop. After drying, it seems to be a piece of overcooked or crispy French fry with a pointed end which was lodged in the crop close to the opening between the crop and the proventriculum, helping to block the opening.

As you or Phil/pdpbison speculated at that time or later (if I recall correctly), the blockage may have contributed to his starvation, or he may have had some primary disease, and the French fries were simply an artifact (or artefact: British spelling. Wasn't sure, looked it up, both spellings correct) of a more recent or later meal.

At any rate, stretching the neck seems consistent with an attempt by the pigeon to be comfortable or less pained in dealing with mechanical blockage -- perhaps caused by the canker or whatever -- while ingesting food.

Hope I'm not sidetracking here.

Best of luck with this pigeon (and all others).

Larry

[Feefo]

Hi Pidgey,

What you are seeing could be the "penguin posture" associated with proventricular and crop pain. Dr Colin Walker (the Flying Vet) lists this as a symptom of canker. Only one of my rescues adopted this posture after eating. There was no sign of canker in his mouth but he had breathing difficulties and died 2 days after I found him. I had treated him for canker and with Baytril for the apparent respiratory infection. Alison in Devon has had a few pigeons with the same symptoms die and suspects it is aspergillosis that affects them.

Beatriz, the white pigeon that I suspected of having ornithosis, had a recurring white bead appearing in the choanal slit. The vet said that it was canker, but treatment didn't budge it...in fact while she was on medication for canker the bead grew to cover part of roof of the mouth. I suspect that it was respiratory exudate and removed it using a Q tip. I check her mouth regularly and she is clear of any suspicious "lesions" now.

Cynthia

[pdpbison]

Originally Posted by Larry_Cologne

Hello Pidgey and all,

Quote from an earlier post of mine from November 6, 2006 11:27 PM German Central European Time:



In order to move his head and neck in such a manner, he had to raise up and stretch (his neck) a bit, a minor detail I failed to add. A bit of a clockwise, circular motion with his head when the pigeon is viewed from the front. Raise the head/stretch the neck, then lower the head/shorten the neck to try to push the mass to the pigeon's left.


I still have a piece of the stuff I removed from his crop. After drying, it seems to be a piece of overcooked or crispy French fry with a pointed end which was lodged in the crop close to the opening between the crop and the proventriculum, helping to block the opening.

As you or Phil/pdpbison speculated at that time or later (if I recall correctly), the blockage may have contributed to his starvation, or he may have had some primary disease, and the French fries were simply an artifact (or artefact: British spelling. Wasn't sure, looked it up, both spellings correct) of a more recent or later meal.

At any rate, stretching the neck seems consistent with an attempt by the pigeon to be comfortable or less pained in dealing with mechanical blockage -- perhaps caused by the canker or whatever -- while ingesting food.

Hope I'm not sidetracking here.

Best of luck with this pigeon (and all others).

Larry

Hi Larry,


We often make small deteurs to revisit ancillary interests...

But yes, these odd head and neck twisty stretchy-movements, and movements of the Crop also, variously...

A piece of dessicated French Fry can kill them, or it just as itself can lead to other problems which do...with no primary illness needed prior to the Fry.

Foreign objects of any kind, worst of all maybe, if 'sharp' in some way, can make serious troubles, popinty ends semi-puncturing ot irritating inside the Crop.

These also can lead to Candida or Yeats getting going in these scrapes or scratches, or damaging tissues, or just the bacteria attatching itself to the object or fry, which then makes everything worse of course.


Sometimes they throw these objects up.



I had a Squeaker last year who threw up an almost two inch long piece of nasty, old, dry, hard French Fry...

All was soon well with him then...but I was about ready to take him to the Vet, have an incision made, and get whatever WAS in there, 'out'...so, his throwing it up was much more elegant and easy for everyone.


Candida or Yeast infections from other causes will see them make these odd head-neck stretches, and Crop movements also, in adult Pigeons I mean...

If we see these of movements, it is good to really thoroughly palpate and feel and sort of gently pinch their Crop to see if one can locate what might be a foreign object in there. This can be hard to do, and one needs to come back and do it quite a few times, since how some things can sit in there make them ellusive.


Too, they can get abcesses from something pokeing them inside the Crop, something that might not even be there any more...and these are serious...they can be 'hard' one day, or firm, then become hydrated, then appear gone for being soft then...


Anyway...


Phil
Las Vegas

[pdpbison]

Originally Posted by cyro51

Hi Pidgey,

What you are seeing could be the "penguin posture" associated with proventricular and crop pain. Dr Colin Walker (the Flying Vet) lists this as a symptom of canker. Only one of my rescues adopted this posture after eating. There was no sign of canker in his mouth but he had breathing difficulties and died 2 days after I found him. I had treated him for canker and with Baytril for the apparent respiratory infection. Alison in Devon has had a few pigeons with the same symptoms die and suspects it is aspergillosis that affects them.


Cynthia

Hi Cynthia,



"Penguin Posture"...good term...!


Both of the recent 'Henderson' Pigeons I had brought to me showed this posture...the small one much more than the larger one.





Phil
Las Vegas

[Pidgey]

Oh, I've no doubt the bird was in pain when I first got it but he seems to be in better shape now. He just had "that look" about him back then. I looked down the esophagus with an otoscope yesterday evening to get a better look at that lesion. It's got the character of a scab and the color of canker, but with uncharacteristic irregularities. It's a broad area about 1/4" wide and at least that deep. It's kinda' tough to see down beyond that and I'd have to set up the cystoscope. If I hadn't been so blasted busy-beyond-belief this week, I'd a'done it but I'm exhausted and have to stop each night by sheer force of will. Sleeping hasn't been good. C'est la vie!

Incidentally, this bird's breathing has been the one good thing--it's slow, steady and untroubled.

Pidgey

[Pidgey]

He's doing pretty good now--the neighbors did a good job and he's eating solid food this morning quite well. His water intake has throttled back and his poops are getting a lot better. They're out of the true diarrhea class and heading towards just being regular poop with a bit of water. The lesion down the throat is gone now so one or more of the meds (probably) did the job.

Pidgey

[Maggie-NC]

Pidgey, that is great news. You may have converted your neighbors to being rehabbers.

[pdpbison]

Hi Pidgey,



Glad to hear things are improving..!


Phil
Las Vegas