Eggbound Owl

[DamonIRB]

Wow, this sucks! Little girl was doing fine when I got up this morning... chirping, eating, drinking, taking a bath in the fresh bowl of water. Got back from lunch and she is sitting on the bottom of the flight, puffed up, eyes closed, tail bobbing, looking like she is straining. It was, unfortunately, very easy to catch her with the net. I got a couple of drops of Calcium Plus directly on her beak, watching to see if her throat was moving, indicating she was drinking some of it, and it was. I have her in a small cage with the heat lamp right now. She's able to perch, and keeps moving back and forth from the lamp. I reckon she gets hot every now and then.

The water in the cage has calcium plus in it, there is fresh, crushed egg shell, calcium rich grit and some fresh Herman Bro seed. I haven't seen her eat/drink anything, but hopefully she will feel like it soon.

Other than taking her to the vet, is there anything else I can do for her? This doesn't really seem like an illness/disease, as it came on so quickly when she appeared to be just fine.

Any thoughts?

D

[MiaCarter]

Aw, I'm sorry to hear about this.

I'd keep her warm for now.
I'd also increase the humidity levels. If you can put a humidifier beside her, that's ideal. If you don't have one, you can put her in the bathroom and run the hot shower every so often and keep the door closed to contain the humidity.

When did you last give the Calcium Plus?
I do a couple drops to the beak every 90-120 min until the egg passes. It's hard to know how much they actually ingest and it's hard to know exactly how deficient they are, so offering more is helpful. I've never had to give more than 3x.

It's a bit late to go to the vet today, unfortunately.
So if she hasn't passed it by the AM, I'd take her into the vet straight away.
They can put her under anesthesia and that relaxes the muscles sufficiently so they can massage it out.

[DamonIRB]

Well, she seems to be doing fine. After about an hour in the 'hospital cage', she started acting her normal self. She's eating, drinking, and obviously annoyed that she isn't with her beau! She's no longer puffed up and is very active. Granted, the lack of puffiness may be due to the extra heat being provided, but she is no longer acting like there is a problem. However - no egg. She's doing a lot of preening to her vent area though, so maybe it's just that the liquid calcium has eased the pain/strain and she'll lay as usual when she's ready.

I'm going to leave her under the heat lamp for the evening. Neither of them are happy about it, but they'll get over it.

Thanks for the input, Mia! I add liquid calcium to a bowl of water each week and leave it all day. They also always have fresh crushed eggshell, oyster shell and calcium enriched grit available in the flight. If she is calcium deficient, it's her own dang fault!

D

[Sally]

You can also supply humidity by wetting a towel and laying it over part of the cage, being careful to keep it away from the heat lamp. Hope she is feeling better, those are the classic signs of egg binding.

[dutch]

DamonIRB...birds indoors?

[DamonIRB]

Dutch - Yes, they are indoors.


Update from this morning - she slept just fine but has, so far, just sat on a perch with her head tucked behind a wing. She never roosts like that, so she might be trying to hide her eyes from the light of the heat lamp. She has a very slight tail bob - you have to watch her very closely to see it. She has been eating/drinking this morning. Still no egg though.

Hmm.

[Sally]

Have you given her more Calcium Plus to the beak? Usually, when hens are over an egg binding incident, they will act totally normal, eating and flying around like it never happened.