What can go wrong with a wing?

[lovezebs]

Hello my friends.
Do we have someone who is knowledgeable about wings?
Yesterday morning, I noticed that Mirrim, my adult Gouldian female was sitting on the cage floor and looking worried.
When she attempted flight, her left wing seemed to be a little wierd and she would land back on the floor. When sitting, the wing is folded back against the body and looks normal. She stretches it out and pokes at it, then folds it back again looking puzzled.
I pulled her out of the flight and placed her with my ocw's who will not terrorize her. I put a light on her and food and water nearby.
She managed to get up to the swing in the evening and spent the night there. This morning, she's on the perch near the light, drinking and eating spray millet.
Any ideas as to what might have happened to her wing? Can they pull a muscle, sprain something, lose some important flight feathers??? I'm pretty sure it's not broken, but beyond that 'clue-less.

[MiaCarter]

lovezebs -- I'm pretty good with anatomy and wing injuries. Seen my fair share!

Absolutely - they can have a pulled muscles/tendons/ligaments, along with sprains.

Lost flight feathers are usually quite apparent. If you unfold the wing, the tips of the feathers should form a smooth arch. If there are gaps in the arch, then that indicates you've got missing flight feathers.

I'd let her rest for now and I'd move her to a hospital cage with a heat lamp, low perches and lots of easily accessible food and water dishes.
Give her some extra nutrients, along with Thrive, NV powder and Rescue Remedy.

A small cage is ideal for a wing injury as you don't want them flying. (Just as you don't want to use an injured leg or arm or whatever.) So if you have a fairly large hospital cage, you might opt to use a cat carrier (disinfected, of course) instead. There's no real way to fly in there -- it's too small and without perches, there's no real motivation to fly either.

A break/fracture is always possible, but these tend to be more obvious -- there's a distinct dangling that you typically see. (Though not always, as there are 'double' bones in the wing like your lower leg or lower arm. There's the radius and ulna that sit side by side mid-wing, so if you broke just one of those bones, the other intact bone would still allow the wing to keep it's shape without dangling.)
Here's a picture: http://hoover71690.wikispaces.com/file/ ... -bones.jpg

So if there's no dangling and she can move the wing normally, then it's likely a pull/sprain/etc. or a very minor fracture that should easily heal on its own.

Just keep her grounded as much as possible.

ETA -- Since you'd be isolating her to keep her grounded, not to give her meds and there's no risk of spreading an illness to another bird, you could always isolate her with a friend or mate. That would reduce stress dramatically. I always try to do that whenever possible. They don't do well alone; lots of stress.

[Corkysgirl]

lovezebs, My old lady bird sprained her wing when she was trying to get away from me, not wanting me to catch her. She slid down off her nest between it and the cage wall and that most likely pushed her wing up a little spraining it. The Vet looked at it and that's what he said happened to her. As Mia said...

I'd let her rest for now and I'd move her to a hospital cage with a heat lamp, low perches and lots of easily accessible food and water dishes.
Give her some extra nutrients, along with Thrive, NV powder and Rescue Remedy.

[lovezebs]

Thanks Girls.
So far so good. Mirrim is keeping quiet and enjoying the warmth on her perch. Drinking, eating and resting comfortably.
I will give her a few days away from the 'animals' in the flight. The ocw's are gentle, quiet companions and don't bother her.

I haven't really spread out her wing to check the feathers. I figured that catching her etc. would probably only make things worse. If it is feathers, then they will grow back. If it is a sprain or strain, time will heal. Even a tiny fracture (hope not) will heal in time.
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Something funny that happened after I caught her to move her to a different cage.
I had placed her in the smaller cage, made sure she was comfortable and sat down with a bit of breakfast and my current book. Taking a sip of juice and turning a page, I heard a flutter of wings. Looking around, I didn't see anything out of order and went back to my book. Flutter, flutter (look around) nothing. Back to book... as a Green Singer flies over my head.
What the heck! I shot out of my chair and looked from side to side. Nothing. Thought I was going crazy. Looked at my flights, where all the birds are sitting quietly looking back at me. If they could, they would be shrugging their little shoulders. I glanced down at the table and picked up my glass of juice. A Green Singer goes sailing by right infront of my eyes, heading for the flight by the window and right through the partially open door that I had neglected to shut properly when I grabbed Mirrim.
Lunging at the flight, I shut the door, took a deep breath and started counting beaks. All present and accounted for. Thank God they didn't all decide to make a break for it.

[Corkysgirl]

Oh...that was close! I hate it when that happens! Once in a while the cage door won't catch and close all the way down and I'll be surprised by a bird flying by. They can only get out if my husband comes home...and one did that one day. I'm happy all is well!

[lovezebs]

Corkysgirl
Hi.
My worry usually is not of a bird escaping to the great outdoors, but rather of getting into the stomach of a dog (2) or a cat (2). I always have visions of Granny, Twitty Bird and Sylvester Cat...'Drop it! Drop it!!!' Funny in cartoons, in real life not so much.

[MiaCarter]

lovezebs -- Ditto on the fear of a bird ending up in a stomach!

I've got 6 dogs and 16 cats so if a bird escaped, it would be a horrendous free for all!

We're actually super careful to ensure this never happens.
The bird room has 2 entrances - one out into the great room and another into a bathroom (which connects to two other rooms, which are adjacent to the great room -- so it's a circle).
When there are birds outside of the cages, we only use the bathroom entrance so if someone were to escape, they'd be in the cat-free bathroom.

One time, I had an awful experience where a plastic column-style bird cage stand failed, and the bird cage toppled to the floor for no reason, breaking apart. (It was one of the older Vision models.)
Sadly, it killed one of the birds. She had a broken neck and was under the cage rubble.
I was in a total panic when I saw what had happened and ran out of the room to call to my husband.
I left the door ajar and my Min Pin ran in and made a beeline for the dead bird. Thank goodness she was trained well with "drop it" --- and she did, but not before trying to run away.
It was just an awful insult to an already bad situation. Bad enough the bird died; now I've got to chase my dog to retrieve said bird. It was just terrible. But thankfully, she was already gone. That's the closest we've ever come to a bird in a belly.

[lovezebs]

MiaCarter
Dogs and cats just see it as the circle if life. We are the ones who have a problem with it. They look at the birds and see LIVE PREY! and can't understand why we don't see it the same way.

Back to my wee Gouldian. Seems to be doing ok. Right now she's grooming herself quite methodically, going over every feather diligently. Doesn't seem to have a care in the world.
The rest of the crew in the large flights are busy investigating piles of wild grasses that I brought for them this am. I swear they're trying to engineer new ways of tossing things out of the cage unto my poor floor. They seem to derive great pleasure out of creating dirty work for me.

[MiaCarter]

lovezebs -- Absolutely agreed! I never fault them for following their instincts. There's an old Chris Rock stand-up skit that goes something like...
The tiger attacks someone and they say "That tiger went crazy" No, that tiger didn't go crazy. That tiger went tiger! If you see him riding on a little unicycle wearing a costume and juggling, that's when he says, "I must be crazy!"

Anyways.....

Glad to hear your little one is doing well!
Grooming is a good thing! That means she's feeling good; not in agony to the point where she doesn't care.
As she grooms, I'd try to sneak a peek at the feathers when she extends the wing.
If you happen to see her while she's grooming, try to catch a glimpse of the underside of the wing, about mid-wing. The feathers are sparse there and you can easily see swelling/redness if it's present.

I hope she's feeling better soon!

Have fun picking up your grasses. *snicker*
<--- That's me after I gave them a big assortment of grasses and saw the mess.

[lovezebs]

MiaCarter

Where is that tiger? Send him over to eat the crazy birds. And send a goat over as well, to clean my floor!!!

[Corkysgirl]

lovezebs My husband is always quoting Tweety bird and Sylvester to me...a big fan! The time I have birds "escape" the most is when they bolt out of my hand because I don't want to hold them too tightly...as it happened a few minutes ago when I was checking the eye of my little guy Ellington. Oh, how did I get another bird with an eye problem!!! He just flew around the room. Not a chance of him getting out. My dog is not in there and it's a rare thing that they get outside the bird room but it is possible! I did have a loose finch in the house recently and the dog was oh so wanting to have a snack but she was really good. It turned out to be a good training session...out of necessity, not choice. I praised her up and down and gave her cookies that are reserved for very special occasions for not E-A-Ting the bird. We spell eat, and spell it backwards and now the dog recognizes the spelling of both. (When I say did the dog eat to my husband) She's too smart so now we say have to say did you "F-e-e-d" the dog?
We have three goats for sale but we don't ship.
I'm happy to hear your Gouldian is doing better.

[finchmix22]

lovezebs
How is your gouldian? Does she seem to be getting better? My GS hen had a similar problem and I checked for broken flight feathers that had not fallen off because if you don't pull them out, they won't grow back. Of course, the pulling is done very, very gently. I gave her Thrive in the water and Feather Fast in her food and a heat lamp in a small cage.

[lovezebs]

finchmix22
Hi Deb.
Happy to report, Mirrim is back to normal.
Following a few days away from the rest of the crew, she is now back in her flight with her regular companions and quite well.
I knew she was ready to go back, when I saw her chasing my two orange cheeks. You could tell she was alright and getting bored.
Jaxom, was so happy to see her, that he developed a whole new dance routine just for the occasion. He was bouncing so high off the perch, that I was worried he would fall off and injure himself. He is now in the pin-cushion stage of his molt and she seemed to be quite impressed by the new look.

[finchmix22]

So glad to hear she is back and healthy again! Great job getting her back on track.

[MiaCarter]

Horray for Mirrim!

I'm happy to hear she's feeling better!

And it sounds like her and Jaxom are getting on famously.

Oh my goodness I love the pin cushion look that goulds get. So darn cute!