Gouldian baby swallowed leg band!
Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:04 am
I'm writing this post to inform others basically since I didn't find anything similar on the web, or has this happened to any of the breeders I know.
So I put leg bands on my gouldians, the closed kind, to keep track of the families.
Sometimes they slip from the leg or the parents take them out so I have to put it again. Usually I find them in the nest or at the bottom of the cage but this time I couldn't find the one missing from one of the babies. I checked for a while then I put on a new one. While I was putting the baby back in the nest I noticed something weird in his crop. ...And it was the leg band. I was surprised to say the least.
I didn't know if it was going to poop it out since is was relatively big in comparison to the seeds, or food would get stuck inside and spoil, which is lethal for any baby finch. So I took a really thin wire, made a hook at one end and pulled it out of its mouth, with great effort and anxiety. The baby was very tired after all this and lived two days after that, I found it dead on the morning of the third day, even if it was being fed normally from the parents. I'm sure I didn't scratch his neck, probably his digestion stopped functioning normally.
To conclude, if that happens to anyone else I suggest to take it to a vet or wait to see if it's going to poop it out. The exhaustion after the process is too much for a baby gouldian.
So I put leg bands on my gouldians, the closed kind, to keep track of the families.
Sometimes they slip from the leg or the parents take them out so I have to put it again. Usually I find them in the nest or at the bottom of the cage but this time I couldn't find the one missing from one of the babies. I checked for a while then I put on a new one. While I was putting the baby back in the nest I noticed something weird in his crop. ...And it was the leg band. I was surprised to say the least.
I didn't know if it was going to poop it out since is was relatively big in comparison to the seeds, or food would get stuck inside and spoil, which is lethal for any baby finch. So I took a really thin wire, made a hook at one end and pulled it out of its mouth, with great effort and anxiety. The baby was very tired after all this and lived two days after that, I found it dead on the morning of the third day, even if it was being fed normally from the parents. I'm sure I didn't scratch his neck, probably his digestion stopped functioning normally.
To conclude, if that happens to anyone else I suggest to take it to a vet or wait to see if it's going to poop it out. The exhaustion after the process is too much for a baby gouldian.
