Gouldian baby swallowed leg band!

[Elli]

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.

[Ginene]

Omgosh! I am so very sorry for your loss. Such a sad story. Thank you for the info! Do you think the parent ate the band and fed it to baby on accident?

[Colt]

Oh boy, something else for me to worry about when my bands come in the mail and I start close banding...

[Sunbay]

Elli - I am SO SORRY.
I have never heard of this happening.

May I have your permission to share this on another forum? This is definitely something we should all be aware of.

Again, my sympathies. It was not your fault.

Lauren

[Atbird]

Wow, I've never heard of that happening. I can't imagine the baby eating it, the parents must've fed it to him.

[lovezebs]

What I don't understand, is how on earth the parents managed to poke it down into his throat with him not choking on it to begin with. I wonder how old this baby was at the time of banding.

I would say that it's not something that one needs to worry about on a daily basis. I would think that it's one of those one in a million kind of things.

Sorry about your baby bird Elli. Let's hope it never happens again.

~Elana~

[Sally]

So sorry you lost him, but you certainly tried your best. I've never heard of this happening, so hopefully it is, as lovezebs said, a once in a million occurrence.

[Elli]

Thank you so much for your comments!!

About the way it happened my theory is this: when the parents get in the nest the babies beg for food no matter what. Probably when the parent tried to toss the ring out it slipped and fell in the baby's wide-open mouth. I don't think they can confuse it with food.

I'll be much more careful with the age. I slip the band on the 10th day, maybe 12th, usually 2 or 3 days before they start to fledge.