FINCHforum

One of my new finches is perching with only one leg--perching by letting one leg dangle in back of him, and resting on the perch with his chest. I've seen a finch do that in one of our petsmart stores, and when I brought it to the store's attention, they took it out of the cage. Later, it was back in, still sitting oddly.

So is this something serious? If they leg is damaged, can a vet do anything with it?

How long have you had them? I don't know a lot, but I guess it depends on the circumstances that led up to it. I've been looking on the internet a bit but it would be hard to know without knowing when it started. It might have a deformed leg or it might be injured. Hopefully someone more experienced than myself can help.

I'd say you need to catch the little guy and take a look. If it's broken the vet can probably help, depending on how it's been damaged. Look at the bird's foot - it could be that something's wrong with the foot (like material wrapped around it), though usually it would pull the foot up in that case and not hold it behind him. If it snapped cleanly and the foot is still healthy a vet (or even you) could splint it. If it's a bad break it could be amputated. It could just be a muscle injury. The only way you can tell, though, is to take a close look. Good luck, and I hope it's just a pull!

I've had these two only about a month, and the legs were fine when I purchased them. I think the leg got damaged when Boo got loose and I had to catch him.

I had to take one of my parakeets into the vet today and I asked him about it. He said that because finches were so small, it would be very difficult to try to repair. He said that the best recommendation he could give would be to let it heal on it's own, as long as the finch is eating and functioning normally otherwise.

So I don't know. I think I'll watch Boo and see what happens. Aside from perching funny, he seems fine.

I agree with Hilary, you should try and gently catch him and have a close look (mag. glass and flashlight will work wonders here).

Gently catch him (get your hand in the cage, have a helper turn out the room lights and then pick him up in your hand, be careful about not touching the possibly broken leg).

Once you have him in hand you can turn the lights back on ;)

Use the flashlight behind the leg and use your mag. glass for a close look, with the flashlight behind you should be able to make out the shadow of the bone in the leg (it's very tiny, hence the mag. glass suggestion).

If it's a clean break, you probably not going to notice anything strange, except maybe a little swelling.

If your confident in your ability's, you can make a little "finch splint" out of household clear tape (like the kind you use for wrapping presents etc.)

There are photo's in my book on finches on how to do this, but basically you gently wrap the tape around the leg about 4-5 winds or so, not too tight, you don't want to cut off circulation.

This will make a nice little "finch cast" for his leg.

Basically your looking to make a cast just like a doctor would make for you out of plaster. After 2 or 3 weeks you can remove the tape, especially if the bird is perching again normally, or at least resting some weight on the "bad" leg.

The author of my book recomended dissolving the tape away with some acetone (nail polish remover) and then throughly washing the finch's leg. That's one option, I've also read that baby oil will cause the "glue" of the tape to weaken and let you get it off that way, even WD-40 is supposed to get the tape off (but then again your washing the leg to get all the oil off!). So no matter what you use your going to be washing the finches leg off, just make sure you use warm water and get all the chemical residue's off the finch.

Afterword, I would also provide a bath for the finch so he can do his own cleaning cycle ;)

I've read many stories of sucess with this technique, I hope it can help you as well.