# Is this normal for a squeaker?



## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

During the night on Tuesday, Bob & I rescued another squeaker.
He seemed to have no food in him. I have been feeding him dry cat food (soaked), & giving him Pedialyte.

After his last two feedings, I noticed that he stretches his neck up & back for quite a while. The poor baby looks as if he is in distress. 
Is it possible that the food is causing him pain?

His soft, light green poop, smells terrible. I've never noticed this with any other rescue. 

When he was stretching his neck, I thought he was dying. Has anyone ever seen that or have any thoughts about it? Thanks.

Phyll


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Phyll,
It sure sounds like canker. Canker seems to be rampant right now.
Have you looked inside his mouth for the usual signs?


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## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

Thank you for responding, Charis.
Canker had crossed my mind.
I haven't really looked in his mouth. The little I see when I'm placing the food in, looks okay.

Do you know how long he would safely be able to go without food? I don't want to torture him, but he's very thin.

Tomorrow we will be taking him to the animal hospital.
Maybe I shouldn't feed him again until then. If I wait, he will have gone 18 hours without food. Is that okay?
Should I give him just a few pieces of food instead of ten, as I was instructed?

Please tell me what to do. Thanks.

Phyll


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Why are you restricting food?


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## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

Please read my post again, I am not restricting food.

If the food is causing him pain, I want to know if I should wait to feed him until he is seen at the hospital.
His last feeding was 3 hours ago. I would be feeding him again soon, but if I wait until he is seen (2:30 P. M.tomorrow),it will be 18 hours between feedings.

Phyll


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Can you make the food real soft and smaller pieces?


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

If the squeaker were an adult, s/he would need food to aid in the territory 
fight w/the Trichomonads, and need that food again for tissue repair. I would
continue to feed but make sure it's soft. Thanks for helping the squeaker out....I know you wouldn't have it any other way and thanks for making
sure that AG gets to see the squeaker.

fp


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Hi Phyll,

I think Charis has the right idea in smaller, softer (more moist) bits of food and perhaps not too much. If you are able to tube or syringe baby formula, I think that is what I would do. It does sound like there may be some type of obstruction (canker perhaps as was posted) that is causing some discomfort. Given that it is getting on towards midnight in NY, you may want to just give some fluids and wait to feed again until morning.

Good luck with this youngster, and please keep us posted.

Terry


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## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

Thank you, Charis, fp & Terry.

Could canker be the reason for his poop being so smelly?
I know I will have answers tomorrow, but that isn't helping my mind right now.

Everyone ~ PLEASE say a prayer for this little pigeon. Thanks.

Phyll


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Hope all goes WELL tomorrow, Phyll, for your little one!

I have heard that smelly poops could indicate Canker. Is his crop emptying?

SENDING LOVE, HUGS AND HEALING THOUGHTS...

Shi


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

I find canker poops to have a twist of sour...., also, the squeaker could have
more than one thing going on. No doubt AG will run tests, if you haven't bagged any of your "favorites" smell-wise, might be a good idea.  

fp


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Hi Phyll,

Thanks for helping this youngster.

Of course, I will say a special prayer for the little one. 

Yes, the poops can smell because of canker and other diseases.

It might be a good idea for you to get some spartrix, Flagyl, so you can get a head start if you do suspect canker.


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Phyll, of course, I will be praying for your baby. Charis' suggestion about the softer pieces is what I would recommend and make them fairly small. We use Science Diet Adult bites and after they're soaked, break them in half of even quarters to feed. You might also wait a minute or so between giving the bites to allow her to swallow well and you can gently massage her neck to help the piece go down. Stretching the neck, to me, means the food is not going down like it should and it could be canker blocking too.

Good luck and let us know.


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## Guest (Sep 1, 2007)

Phyll,
Don't use cat food. It has a protein level that is too high for pigeons and the constituents are higher in bacteria that can hurt these birds. Use Purina Puppy Chow.
The symptoms you are seeing are indications of an infection of any kind in the crop. It could be canker. It could be something else or it could be more than one illness. He needs testing at AG.
Make sure he's drinking. Right now, that's vital. If he's not throwing up the food, cut the Chow into smaller pieces and feed them wet to him slowly. Don't feed too much or he's liable to throw up. Just put down the equivalent of 10 pieces twice a day until you get him tested. If at the end of the day and by the time for the second feeding, if you still feel food in the crop then skip that second feeding.


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Fred, the Science Diet is for dogs. Just wanted to make that clear.


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## Guest (Sep 1, 2007)

I know Maggie. I was just going back to Phyll's first post about cat food.
I've seen birds doing this kind of stretching a lot of times and it's not a good situation because they tend to throw up the food. They're always in danger of dehydrating from throwing up and you can't even tube Kaytee down because then there is an even greater danger from reflux going right into the trachea. It becomes a race between the antibiotics doing their thing and the bird expiring. There is a drug called Reglan that relaxes the crop muscles and tends to prevent throwing up while the bird is being medicated. 
This is probably bacterial + yeast + possible canker.


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

Hello Phyl and Bob,

Just thought I'd throw this in, and you can make of it what you want:

Quote from an earlier post of mine from November 6, 2006 11:27 PM German Central European Time: 



> I did a postmortem dissection on pigeon Carter last week in an attempt to find out why he was making unusual (to me) motions with his head and neck, moving his head from right to left, while a small mass or bulge in his crop the size of an olive went from right to left. (Imagine trying to move your Adam's apple/larynx to the side of your neck). At the time I first saw him do it, I felt -- perhaps timidly, or not thoroughly enough -- but detected nothing unusual. His breast/crop area felt firm. He had food, or some obstruction such as hard french fries, volume equivalent to a walnut, in his crop (and proventricula).





> In order to move his head and neck in such a manner, he had to raise up and stretch (his neck) a bit, a minor detail I failed to add. A bit of a clockwise, circular motion with his head when the pigeon is viewed from the front. Raise the head/stretch the neck, then lower the head/shorten the neck to try to push the mass to the pigeon's left.


I kept an intact piece of what I removed from is crop, and after it was quite dry, a month or more later, I noticed that it looked exactly like a French fry: triangular-shaped or wedge-shaped at one end, hard and pointed at that end. The other end looked like a broken-off-in-the-middle French fry.

I still don't know if what I found in his crop was involved in his problems, whether it was the cause, a cause, or simply an "artifact" of a meal he later ate while sick, and which I happened to notice because of his neck movements and discomfort.

To me, the crop seems like a saggy, stretchable, bag with elastic balloon-like qualities, with two openings, and held in place by tissue which connects it to the skin and the neck vertebrae of the spinal column. 

Larry


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

I don't think there is an orthodoxical stance on which puppy chow to use,
a high grade puppy chow is a good criteria. Personally, I like the organic 
ones that also include vegetables in the ingredients, but don't think that anyone
needs to buy that specifically to meet the pigeons nutritional needs.

fp


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## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

The squeaker is dead because of me.

This is what I was told at the hospital ~
The prognosis wasn't good because he was a sick bird; he was a skeleton.
He had no parasites. He had yeast, but it wasn't bad.
The BAD thing, was that he wasn't processing food. The rehabber said the reason was probably a virus, but it could be bacterial. She said the virus is affecting young birds & only 50% survive.
I was very grateful that the rehabber tube fed him, so he had some proper nutrition in his painfully thin body. She also gave him Nystatin.
I'm not good at determining age. If pigeons still squeak (he did), I call them squeakers, so I asked his age. He was about two months old.
Almost forgot to say that his mouth & throat were clear, no canker. 
I was given Purina Puppy Chow & medication.

One of the things on my very long list of regrets about this baby, was that Bob & I left him on Saturday night.
Before we took this baby home, plans had been made to deliver rescues (not ours) to a rehabber in New Jersey. The baby seemed to be okay on Saturday night, so we made the trip.
Due to the Labor Day weekend traffic, we were gone for about six hours.
After we took the rescuer home to Queens, we sped to get back here. I immediately checked the baby & he was okay. I hurried to soak his food because he was overdue to eat.

Since we took him home, I had fed him several times with the cat food, & everything went well. After he finished eating, & was back in the carrier, he would stretch his neck & pull it back. He never showed any signs of distress during the meal.
For this feeding, I used the puppy chow. 
After giving him about seven or eight pieces of the puppy chow, he started to gasp, opening his beak only a tiny bit. At the hospital, I was instructed to give him 10 to 15 pieces.

Bob was holding him as I fed him, so I told him to put him down. To me, he was dying, but Bob thought I was over-reacting. The baby stood for a minute & stopped gasping.
I WAS SO STUPID!!! Instead of checking his mouth, I said something like, "Good, he took care of it." Bob held him again while I continued to feed him.

A short time later, he began the tiny gasps again. This time, I looked in his mouth. 
My heart dropped when I saw the food & I ran to get tweezers! They were useless because the food was so soft. I thought of using a toothpick, to go under the food to try to lift it out, but I didn't want to torture him. He died.

Tonight, a rescuer told me she was told to use a Q-tip. I wish to God I had thought of that. Now that it's too late, I thought of using a straw to suck the food out.

As Pigeonperson advised, Purina Puppy Chow is the better choice, nutrition-wise. I hated the consistency of it though, & will always wonder if he would have died (then) had I continued with the cat food. 

Larry, your post reminded me to add something I probably would have left out.
On Saturday (his last day), the baby began to do exactly what you quoted in your post. He didn't seem in distress, but I guess he was, the poor soul. 
I never actually felt his crop. I placed my hand on it & felt what I thought was bone. His entire keel bone stuck right out. 

When I realized this sweet little pigeon was dying, I begged, begged God not to let him die then ~ because of something I did. He didn't grant my prayer. I knew his chances of making it were slim, but knowing that I killed him is driving me crazy.

I don't know what I did wrong while feeding him, but I do know that I KILLED HIM. My actions killed an innocent creature & I don't know how I will ever be able to have peace. I wish with all my heart that I could turn back time.
Eighteen days before, we lost the other squeaker during surgery, so it's been constant sorrow here. 

I named this baby "Rocky," because we found him under an overpass on Rockaway Blvd.
That was another big mistake! I spotted him on Sunday evening (8/26) on our way to Mass.
He ran away that night, but, if we really tried, I think we could have captured him on Monday night. I stupidly thought he needed time before he could fly, & that his parents were caring for him, so we left him.
Sunday night & Monday night, I left food & water. On Tuesday night, he stayed in his spot & Bob was able to grab him. He wouldn't have been there starving, had we taken him earlier.

There are so many things I would have done differently.
I would have tried to capture him sooner & I would have stayed here on Saturday night. At least, I could have offered him a fresh drink every hour. I thought about staying here, but Bob is going on seventy-six & I worry about him driving alone at night. I would have checked Rocky's mouth after every single piece of food.

I'm so sorry & I feel so guilty, but that doesn't help that baby now. When I was young, I almost drowned. I remember how horrible the feeling was, & always thought it would be a terrible way to die.
I lived, only to kill a little pigeon by suffocating him.

In a few minutes, Rocky will be gone forty-eight hours & I'm still crying. All the tears in the world won't change what I did to him.
I keep picturing his little face gasping.

Thank you for your advice, good wishes & prayers.
I know you guys will try to comfort me. Please don't waste your time; I don't deserve it.
I'll never get over my stupidity, & all the mistakes I made with him. I hate myself!

Phyll


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Phyll,

I am so sorry to hear about the baby, and sorry to hear you are feeling so down on yourself.

PLEASE remember that you did help, just being there and keeping this bird warm was helping it. You meant well and we all know that, please don't beat yourself up over this anymore. There may have been another reason the youngster seemed to suffocate, that you may not know. You are not expected to know everything, no one does.

The next time you have another rescue, and you will, follow these guidelines first:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=8822


I'm keeping you in my thoughts and prayers that you come to terms with this, and find peace that you need and deserve. 

God bless you and watch over you.


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Phyll,

Please don't beat up on yourself, you and Bob did your very best to help
Rocky and not every rescue will beat the clock and get better. All we do is
try to help them get their footing again and sometimes they are on such
shaky ground that it just isn't possible. There are many a bird rescued that
have been on cat and puppy chow other than Purina, and many that have
been on Purina....I don't think that the kibble itself had anything to do w/
this baby's passing. As Teresa mentioned, we don't know what else was 
going on internally w/this baby and a spontaneous and simutaneous event
could have caused the response that you saw while feeding the baby. Just because the mouth and throat was clear, doesn't mean that the bird didn't have canker, it's an invasive organism that can even eat away at bone. They also can have organ failure, just like humans and if this bird was as emaciated as you describe, surely the organs themselves were compromised.

I know you will find a way through this and let go of these feelings of self
doubt/hatred, Phyll, you don't deserve to treat yourself this way for being
there for the birds and animals in your area. The flip side of that is that you
are too needed and cared about to let this stop you from continuing to be
the caregiver that you are.

fp


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Hi Phyll

You may have contributed to this baby's death just like years ago when I contributed to the death of a precious baby wren when I didn't adequately close the lid to his box and he jumped up, trying to get out, and the lid fell back on him, killing him instantly. It is something I have never forgotten and part of me hopes I don't because I am now paranoid about securing a lid on a cage or carrier. Did you do it intentionally? Absolutely not, no more than I did.

It is trite to say this and I don't want to demean the death of this baby but these things happen. You are a warm, caring person. I don't know any one else (except maybe feralpigeon) who gets up in the middle of the night to feed or rescue pigeons. You are always there when New York pigeons get in trouble.

Your baby had something going on in its throat and it may not have made it no matter what you did. Don't hate yourself for this.


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## Guest (Sep 4, 2007)

Phyll,
I don't even know where to start with this situation. Let me first say one very important thing: You did nothing to kill this bird...absolutely nothing! 
I'll try and explain what happened to the extent I do know what processes were at work but I want to emphasize to you again, that nothing you did or did not do caused this death. You tried to save a bird that could not be saved. People who rehabilitate see this all the time and they may not want to publicize their failures but this does happen and nothing they did or did not do caused the death of those birds. I've been in your position many times and lost a lot of birds the way you described and go through a self-diagnostic every single time and come up empty all the time. No matter what I did to try and bring the bird back, didn't work. I go through the process of trying to think back about if I could have done anything differently and again, I would not have done anything differently and the bird died.

Your bird was not able to be saved no matter what the reasons were for its demise. If it were in my hands or somebody else's, the result would have been the same. I don't even have to know the reason for why it was so sick to know that it had reached a point where it could not be brought back. I'm not being glib when I say, welcome to the club. We all lose birds. It always hurts. We question what we did. We wonder what would have happened if we didn't do what we did and I'm telling you it would have made no difference.

When a bird is so weak from sickness, the blood supply automatically goes to the heart, lungs and brain to keep the bird alive. It's an automatic reflex and there is nothing anyone can do about that. The blood supply moves away from the digestive system because it is not as vital to keep the bird alive. When that happens, cells all over the body begin to die. The digestive system stops producing digestive enzymes, It stops moving food along the system. Everything freezes up. Even the swallowing reflex stops. What medications are there to start the systems again? None. This is the dying process.

If the bird were on a thin line between life and death and we feed it, maybe if there is any ability to for the digestive system to do any work at all, then there is an attempt made by the body to send blood to the intestines to pick up the nutrients but that takes blood away from the heart, lungs and brain and stresses the bird's body even more and causes death by heart attack. So, if you feed, the bird dies. If you don't feed, the bird dies. What you're left with is a dead bird and you don't even know what you did to kill it. You did nothing to kill it. This bird started gasping not because it was drowning. It was gasping because the lungs were not getting enough oxygen any more and the heart was working overtime to get more air in. The heart could not work so hard and so it stopped.

Phyll, go on to the next bird. Had you gotten this one perhaps one to two weeks earlier, maybe, maybe you could have saved it depending on what was wrong. Well, you didn't see this bird a week or two earlier. There was not enough time to save it when you did see it. He was already dying and there was nothing that could have been done to bring him back from that edge.

You don't have to take my word for this. I was fortunate to have a conversation with Dr. Linda Pesek, a prominent certified avian vet in NYC. She knows pigeons. She owns pigeons. What she said is that when a point is reached where the keel bone is so prominent, where there is no fat left to burn, there was nothing she could ever do to bring the bird back from the brink.

I hope you read what I wrote very carefully because what I wrote is what happens in a dying body and I'm telling you, nothing or nobody could have saved this bird. If anything, what you did was heroic measures that didn't work. They never do when the bird is at that particular point but we keep hoping for some kind of miracle so we keep trying. 

So as I said, go onto the next bird. We all live with this pain.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Phyll,

I am so very sorry this little one didn't make it. As others have posted, please don't be so hard on yourself. Sometimes there is just nothing that we can do to save them and sometimes innocent mistakes are made. I don't think you made a mistake. I think this little bird was just too far gone to be able to fight its way back even with the help of you and Bob.

Losing them is very tough and each and every loss does hurt and does take a toll on you, but you have to keep going .. the birds need you.

Terry


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## phyll (Mar 15, 2004)

Thank you, Treesa, fp, Maggie, pigeonperson & Terry, for your kindness.

pigeonperson ~ Thank you VERY much for your detailed explanation. I appreciated it; it helped me to understand the situation better.

It's not that I believe I should have been able to "bring him back" if he was past the point of no return.
What's torturing me, is WHEN he made the final turn toward death. If I had finished feeding him & he seemed okay, even if he died later that night, I would be able to accept it.
Knowing that I helped put the ball-in-motion by feeding him, even if he wasn't gasping because he was aspirating, is hard to take. 
He went through that (at that particular time) because I fed him, & there's no changing that fact.

When we find birds, we give them to an experienced rescuer in Queens. First, because I want them to be with someone who knows what they're doing, & second, because we have rescued cats here ~ upstairs & downstairs. Jesse is free on the main floor. Unfortunately, for this poor baby, this was the first time the woman said she didn't have room to take him.

I know we will continue to rescue. Three weeks ago, a squeaker we rescued died during surgery. When we were on our way into Manhattan to bring his body home for burial, I said to myself, "Don't look, don't look, don't look." I didn't want to go through that pain again, but I HAD to look in case there was a creature in need.
Anyway, thank you very much for trying to help me.

For anyone who prays, please pray for me.
I know the time & manner of this little bird's death will bother me for the rest of my life.
It's not that I only THINK it will, I KNOW it. Over forty years ago, I accidently killed a frog in a creek. Up until this year (2007), I still think about that frog, & wish I could change it.

Thanks to all of you.

Phyll


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## Reti (Jul 20, 2003)

My prayers are with you Phyll. Accidents happened here too and like yourself I will never forget. I know how it feels carrying the guilt with you for ever.

Reti


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## enid (Aug 6, 2007)

Dear Phyll,

I am so sorry about Rocky and the loss of the squeaker before that! You must feel so sad and I can understand why you've been crying. It's so hard to see such a small helpless creature suffering.

You did so much for Rocky! You surrounded him with love in his last hours! That's such an important and beautiful gift. He probably would have died alone if it weren't for you. 

And by sharing your story, you've helped other people when they face something like this! 

Please let yourself cry as long as you need to and please take very good care of yourself. You were an angel for helping Rocky. 

xo, enid


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## AliBlack (Sep 8, 2003)

I just read this thread, I just wanted to say that all rehabbers have heartbreaking moments like this when we blame ourselves and wish we had done things differently, but you actually couldn't have done anything differently in this case, his suffering may have been prolonged if he hadn't died then. I can recount several occasions over the years where I have truly kicked myself and wished I had done things differently, with some of them in hindsight I could have done things differently but didn't due to inexperience, but with others I really can't see how I would have done it any differently, but I still remember each occasion and it is still painful to think about. It is very easy to become crushed with the weight of sorrow and guilt and the horrors which rehabbing can bring but what we have to remember is the most important thing is WE CARED ENOUGH TO TRY.

pigeonperson that was a brilliant post and I agree wholeheartedly!



phyll said:


> Thank you, Treesa, fp, Maggie, pigeonperson & Terry, for your kindness.
> 
> pigeonperson ~ Thank you VERY much for your detailed explanation. I appreciated it; it helped me to understand the situation better.
> 
> ...


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## chezd3 (Oct 8, 2008)

Thanks for this post, It was not the same situation, but I had a rescued Baby King Pigeon and I tried many things to support her illness but she died. I was worried I should not have fed her and how could of I helped her. But, I know I could not have saved her. I came to Pigeon talk to look around on sick babies and found this post. Thanks for sharing, it helped me.


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