# Injured Chaffinch



## Rooster2312

I wasn't sure where to post this, but need some advice about caring for a chaffinch.

My sister who is a veterinary nurse called me the other day to ask if I would be willing to look after an adult male chaffinch who has sustained a bad wing injury due to a cat attack.

The bird has been treated at the vet surgery for the past 3 days and has remained alert during this time despite his injury and obvious stress. I have now taken over the care of this bird since the afternoon, but have yet to fully see the bird and the extent of his injury.

We have made up a large cage with some branches and evergreen foliage (sneakily cut from my neighbours hedge in the pouring rain  ) as there is nothing around with leaves for cover at this time of year. I have a large towel draped over most of the cage in order to minimise stress, and as it's dark here at the moment.

I have peeked through the cage a few times to check the bird but it is dificult to see being so small. I did get a brief glimpse of the wing outline and it is hanging low from the body with evident feather loss. He is still alert and is able to move around the branches above ground level. He has water, wild bird seed, and a piece of apple at present.

I was initially informed that it was doubtful that the wing is broken on examination by a vet, but this is in question now. There is also concern that there may be muscle and/or nerve damage to the wing and therefore his future release is also in question. He has been receiving baytril for the past 3 days and I have only a couple more drops left to complete the course. 

I have very limited experience with caring for injured birds, so this will be a challenge for me to try and get this bird fit for release/permanent aviary if he survives. I am already worrying about how I am going to catch this small bird tomorrow to administer antibiotics without further injury or stress to him. The cage size, poorly designed access and foliage will make things difficult.

Does anyone have experience of caring for these birds or similar? Is there anything else I can do/provide to make him more comfortable? He is unable to fly and it is very likely that should he survive, he will be here for quite some time to allow healing and feather growth. Winter would also not be the best time for his release should he regain full function of his wing again. My sister also said that if he does have muscle/nerve damage he may have to be put to sleep. If this is the case, can these finches do well in a large outdoor aviary as an alternative. So many questions!

Lindi


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## jazaroo

Hi Lindi,

Thanks for stepping in and looking after this little one.

I wish I could offer you more advice, but I really have no experience with small wild birds such as your chaffinch.

However, in order to catch him to medicate him, if you are able to control the light in the room where he is, it would be best to catch him in the dark or near dark. Last year I had a dove in that would just freak out when you even came near his cage, but he still needed to be medicated. The best way I figured out to do this was to cover his cage with a blanket -except the front where the door was-, shut the lights off and then use a flashlight covered with a towel folded over so just the slightest amount of light could sneak out. I would point this at the side of the cage and this was just barely enough light for me to see him after my eyes became adjusted to the dark, but not enough for him to see me and I would slowly move my hand over him and catch him with a decisive grab. 

I hope this helps a little and good luck with him.

Ron


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## Feefo

Hi Lindi,

I have no experience of songbirds but I would always give an unreleasable bird the chance of adapting to aviary life before considering euthanasia.

It sounds as if you have already provided him with an environment in which he can feel safe.

I am surprised that the vet chose to treat him with Baytril. Synulox is the preferred antibiotic for cat bites and I have heard that they are able to give a single shot of this to cat caught songbirds to reduce the stress.

I was thinking that if you need advice you could telephone Carla Lane's placehttp://www.carlalane.com/animaline/contact.html

or St Tiggywinkles

http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/
I hope all goes well, the fact that he has survived the first three days is encouraging.

Cynthia


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## Rooster2312

Thanks Ron for the advice. I shall bear this in mind tomorrow when the time comes to medicate. My sister said she had managed to catch him fairly well in the surgery, but thinks there will be problems now due to the cage. She also said that I didn't have to give him the rest of the antibiotic, but I think I'd feel better just giving him another couple of days which is all I have left anyway. I have just a large drop left anyway (2 small drops worth for 2 doses with a dropper). It is difficult enough to see the bird during the day with the foliage from the hedge, but I figured this cover would make the bird feel more secure by giving him a place to hide in such a large cage. I have the added problem of lack of space to house the bird since I have a bedsit, so the bird is subjected to household noise and artifical lighting etc. which I know is not the best. I am hoping that the sound of other 'foreign' birds in the house will perhaps calm him knowing there are other birds around although I realise that unfamiliar bird calls could also freak him out. 

I really hope this little guy makes it, but he has a long road to recovery ahead of him and he is so small and fragile.

Addition: Just saw your post Cynthia after I submitted this post. Thanks too for the advice and the links. We are encouraged too that he has survived the last 3 days, and hope that this is a good sign to making a full recovery. I agree with you re puting him into a permanent aviary if he is not fit for release. We will just have to wait and pray that he gets through all of this. 

Lindi


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## TAWhatley

Good luck with the chaffinch, Lindi. For those like me who don't know what they look like, here's a link: http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/c/chaffinch/index.asp?i=0


Terry


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## TerriB

Lindi, I hope this little bird continues to recover with your thoughtful care. What an experience, working with such a tiny being!

Thanks for the link, Terry. They certainly are a beautiful bird!


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## Rooster2312

Thanks for the good luck wishes for the chaffinch everyone. 

He has been very bright and active today and is managing very well to hop around from branch to branch in his cage. I also heard him for the first time chirping away at the top of his voice this morning and earlier this afternoon.
I spoke to my sister again today regarding the giving of the antibiotic and she said just to leave it as it would be near impossible to catch him and I know she is right. We decided it would be best to just add the remainder of the bayril to his water.

He heard other chaffinches outside with their distinctive call, and a variety of other small birds, but being just below the window (I raised the cage off the floor more), it was hard to watch him pace back and forth on the top branches trying to find a way out to freedom from the light above.

I can't get close enough to really see what is going on with the wing as he is naturally really spooked, but it looks like it needs to be strapped up. He is also missing a few flight feathers. I am hoping to try and get a video of him at some point once I've worked out how to do this and get it online (and if I can get close enough to get a clear image). I have not actually witnessed him eating or drinking, but I am figuring that if he is this lively, he must be getting something. If his wing is broken, will it heal ok if it is not strapped up? I wouldn't have the first clue how to do this anyway. I am reluctant to handle him unneccesarily due to him being an adult wild bird coupled with his injury and small size.

Poor thing is so lively and probably thinks he can still fly. He half flies from branch to branch but I fear he will damage his droopy wing in a panic to escape. I just hope I can keep this guy healthy so that he stands a good chance of being released. I am glad he is vocal now as my sister said he never made a sound the two days he was at the surgery.

Lindi


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## mr squeaks

Lindi, I am adding my hope for a good recovery!

What a beautful bird! I sure hope all goes well. I know how hard it must be to try and catch such a small little one.

Please keep us posted.

HUGS AND BEST WISHES!!!


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## Rooster2312

Thanks Shi!

Will post updates often. Fingers crossed he progress well from here. There is not much I can do but keep him warm, safe and fed.

Lindi


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## mr squeaks

Rooster2312 said:


> Thanks Shi!
> 
> Will post updates often. Fingers crossed he progress well from here. There is not much I can do but keep him warm, safe and fed.
> 
> Lindi


Sometimes, that's all it takes!

BEST and HUGS...look forward to updates!


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## Feefo

I think that you are doing the right thing, giving it a stress free environment to heal in. 

I have had pigeons with their wings strapped by the vet and although they don't experience the stress that songbirds do they become very upset and just lie at the bottom of the cage looking thouroughly miserable.

A collared dove that was strapped fell on its back all the time.

By the sound of it he is doing well.

Cynthia


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## Rooster2312

My little patient is continuing to do well in terms of remaining very bright and alert, active, vocal, eating, drinking, eliminating etc.

I have moved his cage up a bit more so that he can now see out of the window from the top part of the cage. He is still desperate to escape, but I am hoping that him being able to see the other birds and the outdoors will keep his psychological spirits up, since he will be here for a while yet. I can hear him in his food bowl eating away merrily just now . I've noticed that he is especially enjoying the husk free sunflower seeds and some of the grains in the small amount of budgie seed added for variety. He also has a couple of chopped up dry mealworms, chopped peanuts and other small seeds. I was wondering if I should perhaps sprinkle some calcium block scrapings into his food and give him bird vitamins in his water in order to boost healing?

I have been unable to video him due to problems with the digital camera (major power guzzler and don't have mains adapter lead...plus it doesn't do sound either). Taking photos is a non-starter with the digi camera either at the moment (my fault for buying mega cheap batteries that last for about 3 seconds!! )....but I was able to take a few blurry shots with my mobile phone camera. He was a bit stressed with my presence up close and was hopping around all over the place, but he didn't dive for cover, so I managed a few shots to give you a better picture of how he is. Sorry for all the url's but I can't get photos to load directly from 'manage attachments' anymore. 

His good side:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1500.jpg

Injured right wing: 
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1501.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1433.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1432.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1502.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g41/Rooster2312/13-02-07_1441.jpg

It's getting dark now, so time to cover him up. It's not the best for him living in the same room with the tv, me on pc, noise, lighting etc. but it's the best I can do for now. I have a fleecy cover that covers the whole cage and he seems settled in that during the evening and at night.

Does anyone know how long it takes for a wing fracture to heal?

Lindi


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## Pidgey

Birds heal bones much faster than we do. However, that can be a two edged sword in that if they begin to heal wrong, it gets permanent quickly. Just looking at the picture, it looks as though the forearm is being held out to the side. The general structure of the bird's wing isn't that different from our own arms. In repose, the comparison would be that our elbows are held down straight to our sides with the wrists held very close to our pectoral muscles with the fingers and hand bent sharply downward (pointing towards the hips). He looks like the forearm is falling outward to the side.

Pidgey


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## Rooster2312

Pidgey said:


> Birds heal bones much faster than we do. *However, that can be a two edged sword in that if they begin to heal wrong, it gets permanent quickly... *He looks like the forearm is falling outward to the side.
> 
> Pidgey


Do you think his wing needs to be strapped up? It doesn't look in natural alignment at all and is not easily seen in some of the photos. I'd hate for him to have a permanent disablity due to me not doing anything to correct this.

Lindi


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## Pidgey

Frankly, that's an assessment that the vet should have made. I'm guessing that they didn't take an X-Ray. It could be that the muscles aren't holding the wing up. It's the muscles in the upper arm that hold the forearm up. If those muscles are just flaccid at the moment then the wing could droop like that. I don't think I've ever had a bird injured in such a way that they drooped that much regain the full use of the wing. I'm more used to seeing the tip droop in the back when the forearm (the radius and ulna) droops that much. It's hard to tell, but it almost looks that way here. Granted, those aren't the best pictures to try and make that determination with.

Study the drawings here so that you can better understand the wing's structure and maybe it'll help you figure out the best way forward:

http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/skeleton.html

Pidgey


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## Pidgey

Incidentally, on a bird like this, a simple piece of tape would hold the wing up during healing. Masking tape works the best for me. You'd just literally put it on starting from the back down around the wing in the normally folded position. There's no significant weight to hold there. The fun comes in taking it off--you have to separately pull the feathers from the tape (with tweezers if necessary) rather than pulling the tape from the feathers.

Pidgey


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## Pidgey

You might have better luck making the assessment examination in pitch black and under a blanket so that the bird couldn't really go anywhere. You'd want to feel the good wing for the sake of comparison. Here in The States, it's illegal to keep such a bird without special license, don't know what it's like there.

Pidgey


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## Rooster2312

Thanks pidgey for the link to the anatomical bird skeleton and the advice about taping the wing. I am still a bit confused about how I would do this, so need to find a graphic link explaining exactly where to put the tape ( I have a mental image of what I think you are meaning but not sure). I think I will need to consult my sister again about this, as I would imagine this would be awkward to do on my own and two pairs of hands are always better than one when doing fiddly procedures on nervous little birds. I imagine the vet did not x-ray the bird as it wouldn't have been safe to sedate it enough for a still image due to it's small size, shock etc. from the cat attack. He is a very active little bird and wouldn't have stood still long enough for an x-ray to be taken without him coming to more harm.

I'm up to my neck at the moment revising for an interview tomorrow  and am going away from home on a course at the weekend (even more studying!!). Ideally I would like to have his wing strapped before I leave on Friday, so will work on that. He sustained his injury Thursday of last week I believe, so am assuming that there is still time to try and correct this wing before it develops permanent disfigurement?

I'm not sure about bird laws over here, but will look into it when I've got the time. I don't plan to keep him if he does not regain use of his wing. I would have to try and find a permanent outdoor aviary, perhaps in a wildlife sanctuary or the like if I can place him. I wish more that anything that he will be released into the wild again.....but have to sort this wing problem somehow. 

Thanks for your help,

Lindi


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## TAWhatley

This might be of some assistance, Lindi: http://www.starlingtalk.com/fractures.htm#wingfracture

Terry


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## Pidgey

Given the time factor since the injury (almost a week), if there were a break, it'd probably already be too late to fix due to it hardening up. Birds can even get conditions in broken limbs that can result in non-unions where infection is possible. It's called "osteomyelitis" in the broken bone joints when they get infected and that sometimes has to be cleared up before the bones will actually heal back together.

BUT, we don't know that this bird even has a break at this point. What you'd be looking for is an unnatural looseness or a hardened bulge that shouldn't be there. Taping the wing in place is simply getting the wing to the natural folded position and then applying the minimal amount of tape required to keep it there. Sometimes, it's useless to explain where to put the tape and how to apply it. BUT, if you use that principle, you can think your way through it.

In the healing of injuries like that, it's often necessary to bite the bullet and just get it done, especially with how fast birds will heal. Sometimes, there's risk. You have to do whatever you can to minimize that risk even to the point of sedating a bird if necessary. The way to think of it is that the risk of doing something is often less than the risk of doing nothing. When the circumstances are that the bird will not be allowed to live with people in perpetuity (like can happen here with protected species) then the risk of doing nothing in such a case is simply risking all. So, the stakes can be just that: "all or nothing". It is often difficult for a rehabber to deal with the pressure of that choice. For a lot of us with pigeons, no such pressure exists if we know that there's always the security blanket of our aviaries to resort to if the bird doesn't turn out releasable.

Pidgey


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## Rooster2312

Hi All,

Time for an update!

My little patient has continued to make good progress (I think  ). Thanks to everyone for all the advice about strapping the wing etc. however after consultation with my sister, it was decided to not attempt this due to his small size (I would never have been able to catch him anyway due to the stupid cage design!).

He has remained very lively, alert and vocal and is eating and pooping for Scotland  It has been very hard, however, to watch him hopping back and forth on the top branches all day long looking stressed. He can see and hear the other chaffinches outside and being an adult wild bird, he is naturally wanting his freedom.

I had noticed that he was using his injured wing occasionally, usually when he got stressed and in a 'flap', however, I've observed him preening and giving all his feathers a good shake. When I got home from work this evening, I decided that I really needed to clean his cage out as the branches and foliage were covered in poop. Well he was understandably getting mega stressed as I was hauling branches etc. in and out, but it was impossible to gain access to him within the cage in order to place him in a smaller box.

In addition to being able to remove the lower plastic base, the tall cage has two very small access openings on either side that slide upwards. After clipping some more foliage from my neighbour's hedge in my attempt to give the bird a bit more 'hiding space', a bit of this had wedged one of these access ports open unbeknown to me....and all I heard was a little whoosh of wings and he was out in my flat somewhere . I found him quickly in my tiny bathroom (OMG please let the toilet lid be closed...) up high on the shower rail....so the good new is he can fly!!

The bathroom is no bigger than something you would find on a bus/train so it was difficult to assess his flight properly, but, he was able to fly from floor level up high so I am assuming he will manage ok back out in the wild?? I'm not so sure he would be capable of flying any distance though. His wing still looks anatomically out of place but I think he has adapted well. The vet had been concerned that he may have muscle and nerve damage/loss. He obviously has no problems nerve wise, but I can't be certain he has full muscle control. I wish I had a larger cage so that he could have more room to strengthen his wing through flight.

I really want to release this bird asap but am not sure how much longer I should keep him before release. Ideally I wanted to wait till spring, but am now thinking that is too long a time to wait. This winter has been a mild one so far with only a couple of snow showers and no lying snow. Last year, March was the coldest of the winter with lots of snow showers. What should I do? Keep him for another week and let him go if the weather is good? Let him go sooner? Or keep him a bit longer? I'm scared to release him before he is ready, but I can't stand seeing him caged for much longer. I'm also worried that he will have become acclimatized to a warm house and letting him out now would be detrimental to his survival.

Lindi


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## Charis

Hi Lindi,
I've rehabed lot of little birds through the years and I always keepthem until after the last spring frost. Here in Portland, Oregon that's usually the 3rd week in May.
It is important that the bird does have some fly around time to build up muscle strength. 
Once you think the threat of freezing temperature is past, the ideal situation would be to find someone that has an outside flight cage where the bird could stay for a couple of days and then be released from.
You've done a great job.
I know how difficult it is to handle a small, wild bird.


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## Pidgey

Nahh... don't let 'im go yet. You might think about giving him flight time in the house, though, to do some physical therapy everyday.

Pidgey


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## Maggie-NC

Lindi, Charis and Pidgey are right - don't release him until later. And, as Charis said it sure would be nice to have him spend some time in a flight cage before release. Fright can sometimes enable them to be like superman for an instant but they may not be able to make a sustained flight.

The little guys are slippery as eels. I remember a little sparrow we were rehabbing got out of the cage and it took me about 2 hours to catch him. Every time I "almost" had the little devil, off he'd go. And, when they land, they sit so still you don't know where to look. I finally found him on the hall credenza, in full sight, quiet as a mouse.

You may need to handle him more often to enable him to get in some flying in your home. The little ones look fragile but honestly they can be tough little guys.

Please keep us posted.


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## Rooster2312

Thanks Charis, Pidgey and Maggie for your advice. I am going to put your recommendations in place (somehow) and keep the little one for at least a few weeks longer so he can do some 'physio' before release.

He was really stressed out in the cage when I returned from work today, so I am definitely going to have to find larger accomodation for him. I am playing with the idea of moving my cockateil temporarily to another cage (probably going to have to buy one) so that the chaffinch can have the mini-indoor aviary that Parsley is currently in. This arrangement could be beneficial to both birds, as Parsley is a chronic egg-layer (on 7 eggs again at the moment) and a change of cage as suggested before may break the cycle for now.

The mini aviary is of a good size to allow the chaffinch some short flight and could serve as the next step up to rehabbing the bird for release at the end of the month. I don't want to hurt my cockatiel's feelings by turfing her out of her mansion into a smaller cage, but it is not practical or safe to allow the chaffinch to fly about in my flat. I know Parsley will probably freak, but it would just be for a few weeks.

Lindi

I hope to have some arrangement in place early next week.


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