# Found an Injured Pigeon - Bite Marks and large wounds



## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

Hi people,

1st post here well..because I found an injured pigeon on Sunday (2 days ago).

It was shaking and cowering in a corner at my church and when I went to inspect it, it had large bite marks and open wounds all along its back.

I took it home, cleaned the wounds with water and spread antibiotics over the wounds.

Right now it can walk, flap its wings and it doesn't look like it's going to die. Howeverm it's missing almost all of it's tailfeathers so i doubt it can fly. I left it out today and it wouldn't fly away, just to a ledge or to hide under the bbq. 

It's in a largish box with shredded paper, crackers, crushed nuts and dry oatmeal and a dish for water. 

....so what do i do!?

here are 2 pics of the wounds on the 1st day


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Well, he'll probably heal okay, although it'll take awhile given that damage. They'll usually surprise you, though. The worst thing is that with a lot of animal bites, there is the possibility of a systemic Pasteurella infection that can kill a bird in a few days. That said, we need to get him on a penicillin-based antibiotic as soon as possible. The preferred one is Clavamox (Amoxicillin plus Clavulanic acid) but even straight Amoxicillin will do. Where basically are you?

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

By the way... those little yellow hairs up on his neck and probably his head tell us that he's actually too young to know how to eat solid food although they can learn pretty fast if they're starving. He'll have to be taught or you'll have to feed him the hard way if he hasn't already learned.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

Toronto Ontario, Canada.

I have amoxicillin for people... in pill form. can i use that somehow? or do I need to get my hands on animal/liquid forms?

I saw him peck at food...but haven't seen him eat much


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

I suppose it's also possible that other birds did that to him in which case you wouldn't need the antibiotics. However, since you don't know, we better try. Do you have any pet supply stores or feed stores anywhere around you?

On another note, you don't really need gloves to work with birds like this. Due to their fairly high body temperature (~107 degrees F), there aren't many strains of bacteria or other bugs that we share in common. He's actually in more danger of some bacteria that we commonly carry in our mouths than the other way around.

Pidgey

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

That'll work--tell me exactly what Amoxicillin pills you've got and we'll work out how to dose him. Do you have any way of weighing him that's pretty accurate like a kitchen scale?

Pidgey


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

anark said:


> Hi people,
> 
> 1st post here well..because I found an injured pigeon on Sunday (2 days ago).
> 
> ...


Thank you for helping this bird. It sure knew the right place to go for help.
I can tell from some of the yellow fuzzy feathers that the bird is what we call a squeaker...a young bird that is ready or has just left the nest and probably doesn't know how to eat on it's own.
I would suspect, from the injuries that it escaped from a Hawk. It's good that you put antibiotics on the wound because doing so may have saved it's life.
My worry for the bird at this point is that we need to make sure it's eating and drinking. We also need to instruct you as to the best kind of food for this little one. Have you seen the bird eat and drink? How many poops does it have each day? What do the poops look like?


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

If you've got puppy chow dog food, you can use pellets of that to start feeding him. The first pigeon that I rescued, lo these many years ago, I actually first fed rolled oats. I had to peck at the flakes with a pencil with the bird watching me. She started pecking and eventually "got it". It was a gorge-fest after that.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

Poops are green liquid with bits of black (but not solid food that has pass through its system). Yesterday and the 1st day it was white liquid and black solids.

I will go check on what antibiotics I have in the house. I don't have a way of measuring it's weight. I'd have to say it's almost full sized and it's very active. I was in the backyard with it and it would walk around and do short flights to the ledges and to chairs. 

I have not seen it really eat or drink but i left it at home today while at work so i can't tell for sure. 

Gloves were just a precaution but thanks for letting me know. brb with the drug list.


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

I have a dog but he's 11 now so no puppy chow in the house for a while.

I'll try with the oats and pencil pecking too.

I have amoxicillin 500mg in the red/yellow caps

btw. I'm Allan. thanks people >_<


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Let's go with 100 mg/kg, PO, BID. That means: 100 milligrams of medicine per kilogram of bird, Orally, Twice Daily.

Your bird is probably in the 250 gram class, or a quarter of a kilogram.

Therefore: 100 * 0.25 = 25 milligrams per dose, twice daily.

So, a 500 gram capsule would make 20 doses or ten days. Personally, I'd only treat for a week on that one. Let me ask you a question: do you have any 1 mL syringes without a needle? Or a 1 mL eye dropper?

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

I should have that stuff around. ...and lol i used to be a pharmacy tech and my gf is a pharmacist (never worked with her) so i know the sigs =)

how do i administer it?

Allan!


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Well, about the easiest way would be to mix the powder in 20 mL of water, shake the fool out of the container and administer 1 mL down his beak twice daily.

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

I'm afraid that you probably better get started getting solid food down him, too. They usually eat wild bird seed and young ones like that tend to prefer smaller seeds like wheat, milo, safflower seeds, hemp (not the bad kind!), barley and stuff like that. Dried peas and field corn are a heckuva' lot easier to feed them with, though, if you're trying to do it the hard way of getting their beaks open and putting one seed down at a time.

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Normally at that age and suspected size, they're going to need about 80 Calories to keep growing. That would be the equivalent of about 8 dry, level teaspoons of cornmeal per day to give you an idea of how much food we're talking about.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

it's sitting on my desk beside me and eating the almonds and grass seeds right now =)

Allan!


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Incidentally, all seeds need to be raw and unsalted. Where'd you get the grass seeds?

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

err. scotts turf builder? and the seeds are unsalted and raw


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Can you read the label and make sure that they don't put any chemicals or fertilizer in that stuff?

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Let's don't let him eat that, okay?

http://www.householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&id=19026015

It may have some crabgrass preventer in it--read the MSDS.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

will do. i'll make sure its pure seed and nothing else


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

I'd rather you busted up some dry adult dog food than that stuff--we can trust it better.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

k. crushed dog food, yellow rice?

and it's drinking water too.


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

That sounds better--don't crush the dog food up too small, probably about the same size as the almond bits were (raw almonds, right?). It'll probably be "Katie-bar-the-door" when he really gets going. There might be some serious squeaking and wing-waving while he's going at it. You've already medicated him?

He might end up throwing up if he ate much of that other stuff and it's got the stuff listed on that link I posted. That sometimes happens to young birds who eat bad things. I had one young one that ate a bunch of those little ball-like seeds from some tree. They didn't work and she threw 'em all up late at night on the floor. Shocked the crap out of me. I guess we'll see.

It's a lot easier to teach them to drink than to eat.

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

havn't started medicating... how do i open it's beak to feed it the meds?


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

One hand behind the head with the thumb and index finger around the head. Grasp the base of the beak with those two digits while working the beak open with the other fingers. Once you get it open with the one hand, you can keep it held open with the other one with the fingers around the head while you insert the syringe with the other one.

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

You can see some of that in this picture series:

http://community.webshots.com/album/551797824oCuErL

Pidgey


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## anark (Jul 23, 2008)

I'm guessing that if it makes it through the week, I'm going to have to care for it for a while? can you send me a link or direction to how to house it?


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Well... we just housed our first one in a box with newspapers spread all about. We taped the flaps open in the flat like porches and she started jumping up there out of the box and sitting most of the day. Once she felt like the box was her property, we started teaching her to fly by holding her further and further away from the box. She'd fly to it and then we'd do it again. Eventually, we were opening the door and taking her outside to fly to the box from as far away as across the street.

There came a point where we were taking her to a place where there were other pigeons and she'd fly up to them for awhile and then she'd fly back down to us. It was close to home so we'd walk with her on our shoulders. It got to where she'd spend the day with the regular pigeons and we'd pick her up in the evenings--she'd just fly down to us and ride home. She got to where she'd spend one night out, then two...

Pidgey


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