# Spitting Up Blood



## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

Hello Everyone,

This morning I was in my loft cleaning up some perches. I saw a small spot of blood on the floor and on my finger. I thought I had cut myself, when I heard a pigeon making a gurgling sound. It was one of this years YB's, and I thought she was sick, so I picked her up and looked down her beak and she was spitting up blood. She died right in my hands. 

She had no visable wounds, she was outside flying around fine a few moments earlier. I looked around for anything, which seemed wrong, or out of place, nothing. I thought of having her taken to the vet to determine cause of death, but my local vets, are pretty much useless. I wrapped her up in one of our nice linen napkins, my wife uses for special dinners, and buried her in our flower garden.

Would anyone have any ideal, even a guess, as to what could have possibly happened ? There was no evidence of any sickness. She was a beautiful "Black Ludo" which I admired from her very early days. I had high hopes for her racing and breeding career. She was also becoming a favorite pet, always one of the first to land on me at feeding time.


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## Reti (Jul 20, 2003)

Oh, Warren, I am so sorry for the tragic death of your beloved pigeon.

I can only think of a couple of things as the cause of this sudden bleeding and death, one would be an internal injury. Could she have bumped into something while flying around, maybe she flew into a window?

Another one is rat poison. Could she have picked it up while free flying?

Although it happens in humans I don't know how often this can happen in birds, that is a congenital arterio-venous malformation in the lungs.

Again, I am very sorry.

Reti


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## pigeonmama (Jan 9, 2005)

Oh, Warren,
I am so sorry. What a shock it must have been. Only thing, she died, being held and comforted by her person  
Daryl


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Hi Warren,

So sad about your little favorite, Warren. I'm very sorry about your loss today.

fp


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## bklowe (Oct 21, 2003)

Sorry about your loss Warren .... I think Reti's " flew into a windw or ? " is likely the cause.


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

Hi Warren, 

So very sorry to hear about your dear bird I have no other suggestions to offer of what could have happened to her than what has already been theorized about. What a strange thing to happen, I've had a pigeon die right in my hands as well a few years back. It's not something I will ever forget or want to go through again. 



Take care,


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Warren...


I am so sorry...

Reti seems to have mentioned a thorough set of possibilities to my mind.


Maybe, additionally, if your Bird had somehow eaten some small sharp object...

Or had, as Reti mentions, some vessel unusually formed or situated which either burst on it's own or was unusually available to be affected by a foreign object in the Crop...

Any possibility your Bird had been shot? Or could have flown momentarily into or onto something narrow and pointed somehow, and been punctured? - sometimes entry wounds or punctures do not bleed much, while internal bleeding can be copious...

Wafarin can occasion bleeding at the nose and lungs and other areas...and wafarin treated Grain is something some people employ against Rodents, and it is imaginable that Birds could sometimes inadvertantly graze on such grain if it was something they could run across...

Ohhhhh...golly.

So sorry to hear of this.

Phil
Las Vegas


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

Hi Phil, 

I was thinking along similar lines to you. Perhaps it was a very narrow entry wound, speared, gored or maybe shot by a BB gun and it caused the internal injuries and the blood to swell up the throat. Guess we'll never really know for sure and it won't bring this poor bird back


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Brad,


Yea...golly...how aweful, whateveritwas...

Darts from blow guns also...the Dart falls out in flight, and the puncture remains...if it hit a blood vessel, there could be serious bleeding...

Sometimes I have seen Ferals with those damned 'darts' sticking out of them, but they were not in situations where I could catch them...

Bee-Bees or Pelets tend 'usually' to make kind of 'crushing' punctures rather than pushed aside punctures, and would usually bleed more than a puncture from a thin something with a sharp end.

Military Bayonette wounds were often not much for external bleeding but plenty of internal...the suction of withdrawl kind of closes the pushed-in 'flaps' of the wound.

Too, a splinter which breaks off more or less in or just under the skin, could be of any depth and not bleed at all on the outside. I have had that on me many times being a Carpenter and Woodshop operative...in my hands, but if something like that were in or through one's chest or stomach area...could be serious. Hands of course almost never bleed internally, or mine never have anyway. 

Again Warren, I am very sorry this happenned to your Bird.

Best wishes,

Phil
Las Vegas


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Hi all,

Not sure Warren needs all the morbid speculation, but my two cents on bb wounds would be that the entry wound from one would differ dependant on 
whether an air pump or gas cartridge and range. 

Warren, regardless of whatever the circumstances of the injury or illness, I hope
that this is an isolated mishap and that your loft continues to prosper at the 
hands of all of your wonderful natural methods.

fp


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## Birdmom4ever (Jan 14, 2003)

I'm so sorry for your loss, Warren.  May she rest in peace.


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## Pete Jasinski (Jan 2, 2005)

I'm so very sorry for your loss, she'll be in my prayers


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