# Injured Magpie with Broken Bloody Wing - PLEASE HELP!



## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

Hi all,

A friend of mine told me today about a magpie he's been seeing with a broken wing. He told me that he thinks the magpie was down for a couple of days. I've been able to catch the magpie, get her into a carrier, and bring her home. (Of course I don't really know about the sex / gender; I'm just using 'her' as a neutral pronoun).

My greatest concern is that there is blood on the magpie's broken wing. Some of it looks old & dried but some of it looked like it might be fresh. My own vet (which is great for birds & exotics) won't open again until Monday, and I don't know how to treat this myself. We have an emergency vet in town but I very strongly suspect that if I take her to the emergency vet they'll just euthanize her even if she is completely savable (as they told me would have previously with a pigeon I rescued with a broken wing who pulled through just fine). 

Any advice you could give me on how to treat the wing / stop the bleeding / ward off infection would be most helpful.

Thank you so very much,
Howard


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Cleaning it with a saline solution, and if you can wrap it against the body in a more natural position till you get to the vet. That will hopefully take some of the pulling on the break from the weight of the wing. You can't be sure where the break/breaks are without an Xray. Are there any bones sticking out? Just tell the vet that you don't want the bird put to sleep, and that you will take care of the bird. And don't leave him there. Take him home with you. Sometimes with a wing break, it doesn't heal well enough for the bird to be able to fly well enough to be released. Would you be able to keep him if this be the case?


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Thank you for helping the poor Magpie! someone more expert than me should answer soon. Think he probably needs antibiotics such as amoxicillin soon and his wing set. Is he eating? Drinking? Can you pls post a photo? our first pigeon was a feral pigeon with a broken wing and near decapitation the wildlife people would have euthanized but with help she was our love for 8 years. Magpies are reportedly very smart. They are wild but better a bird who has been helped than a euthanized bird who could have been helped. We are rehabbing a scrub Jay because our wildlife rescue euthanizes most birds.


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## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

*Cleaned Wound; Got Enrofloxacin & Metacam*

Hi Jay3 and cwebster,

Thanks so much for your responses. I was actually able to find a clinic open where a vet could give first aid treatment for the wing. 

The vet saw us and was able to diagnose the wing as broken, and the wound as old. The wound needed to be cleaned; it had quite a few maggots in it (I saw a maggot in it myself during the exam). The vet and his assistant thoroughly cleaned the wound and are confident that they got all of the maggots out (although they cautioned that there may be eggs). They recommended against wrapping the wing at this point due to the maggot situation. I have instructions to clean it again myself with hydrogen peroxide tomorrow evening. The vet said that if I feel confident at such a later point that there are no more maggots then I can try to wrap the wing (or perhaps better – try to get someone at my regular vet clinic to do this). It seems to me that this might be a very good idea, as the wound does look very open. 

The brake was apparently pretty bad. I think that I can see part of a bone sticking out, and the vet told me that the parts of the bone do not seem to meet. It looks as though it may require plates if there is going to be wing function. This may well be advisable even if Margo (as the magpie has been at least provisionally named for purposes of documentation) is going to be a companion bird. I am in fact well positioned to adopt Margo should she not be releasable. I currently have a non-releasable magpie named Maggie (who we are pretty sure is female because we think we felt a developing egg inside her that was later resorbed) who does not currently have any other magpies for companionship. Maggie has a good deal of space - a 2.5 room suite in my house - so I was pretty confident that we could handle having a magpie companion for her. Hence, I told my vet and told her to put the word out that if she or anyone else knew of any other non-releasable magpies looking for a home I had one available. I believe that in this case my friend told me about the situation with Margo because he heard that I was in a position to take a non-releasable magpie.

In addition to cleaning the wound the vet gave us Metacam for an analgesic and Enrofloxacin as an antibiotic. We weighed Margo at 160 grams. The solutions and doses are:

Metacam Injectable [although it’s being administered orally] 5mg/ml; Give 0.20 ml every 24 hours (for 10 days)

Enrofloxacin Oral Suspension 32.3 mg/mL; Give 0.16 ml every 24 hours (for 10 days)

I have sent an update to my regular vet and am trying to get an appointment with her as soon as I can. 

I have not yet noticed Margo eating or drinking since I've gotten her, although we've only now just gotten home so she hasn't yet had much of a chance. She has available water and canned meal worms, which are Maggie's favorite food. She has produced a good deal of droppings, I think with feces in them - and I think that in the stress of everything she may have vomited something that looks like a good amount of seeds / berries she had been eating. I think I actually may have seen her drinking outside before I was able to catch her. She also did a very good job making me work to catch her - she initially hopped up a tree. I came back a couple of hours and was able to catch her when she walking in the open, but we did do a lot of zig-zagging back and forth and I was completely winded after I finally caught her. She also escaped from her carrier over at the clinic. So she seems to be pretty spunky. I'm very much hoping that she eats and drinks here soon (although the situation must be extremely stressful for her).

Thanks again so very much,
Howard


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## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

*Feeding*

Sorry - one more question / thought about food. If I don't see Margo eat in the next 12 or so hours might it be a good idea to try to syringe feed her some Kaytee Exact formula for Baby Birds? I had a pigeon girl who I was feeding that to when she was sick (she's since fully recovered) and I fed that to Maggie at one point when she was off her feed. I gave Margo some extra water with her meds tonight, but I didn't yet try syringe feeding her anything.

Thanks,
Howard


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Howard, was wondering the other day how things have been going for you. Thank you so much for helping the magpies. Hope Margo is better soon! Sounds like she is in very capable caring hands. Glad Maggie will gave a friend. If Margo doesn't eat soon you might try very small mini mealworms...pet stores have cheap regular live ones and you can get mini mealworms from Rainbow Mealworms online. We give the scrub jay an assortment of nuts, dried fruit, acorns, berries, cherry tomatoes, small crickets, and one inch mealworms. He loves eating crickets from my fingers. Don't know if magpies will accept defrosted peas like pigeons will. Don't even know what magpies eat actually. Just thought a wiggling bug like a worm might tempt Margo to eat sooner than a canned worm. The Kaytee might jump start her appetite but I am always so afraid to syringe feed a sick bird or other animal because it is so tricky to avoid aspiration, but she may need that to recover. How too are your pigeons doing?


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## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

*DANGER: Do not Overdose on Metacam (ours was Diluted)!*

Hi all,

Just in case anyone is using this thread to get ideas about what doses of metacam and baytril / enrofloxacin to use on 160 gram Magpies, my vet has weighed in on the doses I wrote down, and let me know that they sound too large.

I think that a big problem of miscommunication has stemmed from my neglecting to include the following sentence in the description of the metacam: 'It is a diluted form in 2 ml preparation'. I am very sorry about this oversight. In undiluted form, maximal safe dosage would be 0.02 ml, NOT 0.2 ml. So please - no one go and give a bird 10 times the dose that she should have!

My vet is, however, also concerned that the baytril / enrofloxacin dose may have been too high (about twice as high as it should be). Margo seems to be OK, least now, after getting these doses last night. Although she was pretty tired last night she seems alert and is eating on her own (a peanut in the shell in fact, which is the most labor intensive of the foods offered to her, which did include 1 inch meal worms and a mix of seeds, nuts, dried fruits, and legumes). But I'll post any updates on the dosing information on this one.

Thanks again for all of your help!

Best,
Howard


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

You don't need to water it down for a pigeon, but I don't know about dosing a magpie.


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## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

*Post-Operative Difficulties With Blood Feathers*

Hi All,

Margo has been doing very well. We have, however, just recently been having some post-operative difficulty with a bunch of blood feathers that are coming in all at once.

Back in October, the vet determined that Margo needed to have part of her broken wing amputated (since she didn't have sufficient nerve connection below the brake to have any feeling in it, and it was getting in her way). Margo got through the surgery (in early mid-October) just fine. About two weeks after the surgery she got a feather caught in a knot in her dissolving stiches, which did cause her to bleed a little from the amputation site, but the emergency vet to whom I took her just removed the caught feathers and it didn't giver her any further problems. 

Earlier this week she again bled from around the amputation sight, and I thought that she might have somehow pulled on her stitches again. But when I got her to the vet they were able to determine that the stitches had dissolved some time ago and it appears that what happened was she opened some of the large number of immature (blood) feathers from around the site of the surgery that are all coming in at the same time and are unprotected by mature feathers. The doctor there pulled out a couple of broken feathers to prevent them from bleeding, and cauterized the spots from which she removed them. They sent me home with some avian styptic sticks in case she had another incident of blood feathers opening. 

I suspect that what caused the blood feathers to open was either (i) my handling Margo, or (ii) her falling in the larger enclosure that I had prepaed for her (which happened when she initially tried to climb around). In response I've kept her in her old, smaller enclosure, but I think she really wants a bigger space, and I'm hoping that now that she's had a few days to heal that she's ready to safely go in her larger enclosure. 

So the main thing I'm wondering is: how long it should take for the blood feathers to come in to the point that she can safely handle banging into things a little (as she learns how to navigate her new environment) and being handled without risk of them reopening? 

If you have any information / advice / thoughts on this I'd be most grateful.

Thanks so much,
Howard


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Howard, not sure about the feathers but someone expert should answer soon. Thank you for continuing to help Margo.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

How far up did they amputate? I have birds with wings removed in different places, and don't have any problems with broken blood feathers. They are however in the loft. Maybe your bird is catching them on the wire of the cage? If that be the case, then I would think that a larger cage would be less apt for that to happen.
If the bird climbs around on the cage sides, this could happen in any size care with wire sides.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

While Phoebes broken wing was healing we had to keep her in a relatively small parakeet cage so she would let her wing heal. She could not flap or jump around. Later she was able to flap and fly although she was not releasable. You may want to consider doing this with Margo. I can't say enough good things for your wonderful kindness in helping fix her up and being willing to adopt her.


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## Howard Nye (Oct 14, 2009)

*Margo's Amputation at the Distal Humerus (I think?)*

Hi Jay3 and cwebster,

Thanks very much for your responses. I'm pretty sure that the site of Margo's amputation was at her distal humerus - i.e. the equivalent of an amputation just above the elbow in a human. (I can't seem to find a written record confirming this, so I'll try confirming it with my vet tomorrow).

The vet did say that it might be safest to keep Margo in a smaller enclosure (plastic large dog kennel) immediately before and after the operation, and after this incident, so she couldn't flap around. What they didn't tell me was how long it would take for the blood feathers to come in.

I've gone ahead and let Margo into her bigger enclosure. It's a large ferret cage with a bunch of perching sticks that I've set up inside - which is the largest bird enclosure I can find. My other magpie, Maggie, has one just like it, that she uses as her home "tree" within her 1.5 room suite (she has a bedroom and a custom-built area under the stairs all to herself). Margo also has a bedroom to herself which is separated from Maggie's room by a screen door. That's where Margo's ferret cage is located, and I'm planning to let her out into her room once she's fully recovered and gotten more used to navigating the world with one wing. Eventually I'm hoping to introduce Maggie and Margo so they can share a single 2.5 room territory.

So far Margo seems to be doing OK in the large enclosure. When I was moving some things around she did flap around and fall (again, I think she's getting used to having only one wing / being flightless in a larger area), but I don't think she landed on the wing, and she certainly didn't start bleeding. I'm now suspicious that what probably caused the blood feathers to rupture was my handling her in the course of trying to transfer her from place to place. We've worked out a system now so I can transfer her (at least from smaller places to larger places) without having to handle her, which is how I got her into the large enclosure. So I'm hopeful that as long as I don't need to handle her while the blood feathers are immature she'll be OK.

That said - do you know how long it takes blood feathers to mature?

Thanks again so much!
Howard


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Probably takes a month or so. Never really timed it. I have a hen with a wing that never healed well enough to fly, but didn't have it removed, as it does help to keep her warm, and helps her to flutter a little up or down. But when the flight feathers come in, she will trip on them if they are not trimmed, so I have to wait for them to finish growing out, then can trim them back.


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