EllenD
New member
- Aug 20, 2016
- 3,979
- 68
- Parrots
- Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
I haven't been on the forums much for the past few weeks, as we've been through a really tough time here with my almost 8 month old Senegal baby, Kane. Some of you may have seen my last post regarding how I accidentally left the house and forgot to put Kane back inside his cage like I normally do. All of my birds are always out and fully flighted whenever I'm home, but anytime I leave the house, even for 20 minutes, I put them all back inside their cages, because you just never know what might happen. Well somehow I had forgotten to put Kane back inside his cage, and I came home an hour later to find his Yml dometop cage just covered in blood, both inside and out, and initially I thought that Kane had ripped out the toenail on one of the toes that point backwards on his left foot.
Well after soaking his foot in a solution of sterile saline and Hibiclens, and seeing the volume of blood he had lost, I realized that it was much, much worse than losing a toenail. Based on the blood trail on the outside of the cage and the pool of tacky blood on the bottom tray and on the floor, it was obvious that Kane had gotten his toe stuck in between the bars of the cage, where the round dome-top piece meets the flat piece of the top front. And he did it while I wasn't home. He had chewed off his own toe to free himself, through the bone and all...[emoji22]
I had given him initial antibiotics and pain meds because his avian vet couldn't see him until the next day, and I didn't think seeing the exotic vet at the 24 hour animal hospital would do any good since I had Metacam and a broad-spectrum antibiotic that's commonly used to treat skin infections on hand already. So we went to his Avian Vet the next day, got an x-ray (had to sedate him with gas), and confirmed that he had chewed off the entire end of his toe bone. He didn't leave much skin at all for the vet to make a flap, so he decided to give him antibiotic injections, oral antibiotics, and had me do soaks in Hibiclens and Epsom salts every day. He was doing fine for the first couple of days, until I noticed he had developed a blister/pustule on his toe right above the end of the stub. I took him right back and he lanced it, and did blood work. He had a raging infection. Then Kane stopped eating completely, started sleeping all the time, and lost so much weight so quickly. It all happened so quickly. And it's not like it was something that Kane was hiding and that been allowed to go on and on without treatment, he was treated less than 15 hours after it happened at the avian vet, and was treated by me less than 2 hours after it happened with antibiotics. But it all just happened so quickly...
I thought I was going to lose him. He's only 8 months old, I've only had him since the end of November. That's not nearly enough time. This can't be happening. Not now. I made the decision that Kane was not going to die. He just wasn't, I wasn't going to allow it. Not now, not ever. Not on my watch.
I started staying up with him all night, every night. I watched him while he slept on my chest every night, as I laid on the couch watching TV (thank God for Netflix and Amazon Prime). I did multiple syringe feedings every day with critical care formula and Pedialyte. I gave him his antibiotic injections, his oral antibiotics (2 different ones), his probiotics by oral syringe. I soaked his foot three times a day in a mixture of Hibiclens, Betadine, saline, and Epsom salts. Then we used topical Terramycin and a hard little cast I made myself out of fiberglass and resin I bought at PepBoys! The vet gave me soft gauze to wrap it in after using the topical antibiotic ointment, but Kane wouldn't let it alone, so I thought it was never going to heal. So I went to Petco and bought the fiberglass and the hardening resin, cut it, formed it to his toe with the gauze on it, and hardened it. Then we put it on overtop of the antibiotic ointment and the gauze wrap, and I must have made 30-40 of those little casts because I changed them out 3-4 times a day. And slowly Kane started talking again, started to pick at his pellets and his seed mix, then his veggies, then he started saying "gimme kisses" followed by his little kiss sound. It was the best thing I've ever heard. I'm crying right now writing this. He was so close to dying...
Now his toe is almost 100% healed over. We had to amputate a little tiny bit more bone in order to make a usable flap. It looks really good, just one little piece of healthy scab left on top, that's it. The stump is completely healed over, and is nice and pink! My avian vet did a fantastic job, I love him so much. And I owe him the world.
Kane needs to gain a bunch of weight back, he's very skinny. He's eating his normal amount of pellets, seed mix, veggies, etc. but I'm not sure what to give him to put the weight back on him. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know, I'll be in the Harrisburg/York area tomorrow all day, so I can pick pretty much anything up from any pet store or several vet clinics down there. I'll post a photo of him below, he's not horribly thin, like emaciated, but he's skinny and I don't like it!!! But he's alive and he's healthy, and his foot is healed. So that's all that matters!!!
Oh yeah, he's got a brand new cage too, a square one instead of the dometop. Never again. I researched it and this has happened several times before. That's another post though...
He's such a good boy...
"Dance like nobody's watching..."
Well after soaking his foot in a solution of sterile saline and Hibiclens, and seeing the volume of blood he had lost, I realized that it was much, much worse than losing a toenail. Based on the blood trail on the outside of the cage and the pool of tacky blood on the bottom tray and on the floor, it was obvious that Kane had gotten his toe stuck in between the bars of the cage, where the round dome-top piece meets the flat piece of the top front. And he did it while I wasn't home. He had chewed off his own toe to free himself, through the bone and all...[emoji22]
I had given him initial antibiotics and pain meds because his avian vet couldn't see him until the next day, and I didn't think seeing the exotic vet at the 24 hour animal hospital would do any good since I had Metacam and a broad-spectrum antibiotic that's commonly used to treat skin infections on hand already. So we went to his Avian Vet the next day, got an x-ray (had to sedate him with gas), and confirmed that he had chewed off the entire end of his toe bone. He didn't leave much skin at all for the vet to make a flap, so he decided to give him antibiotic injections, oral antibiotics, and had me do soaks in Hibiclens and Epsom salts every day. He was doing fine for the first couple of days, until I noticed he had developed a blister/pustule on his toe right above the end of the stub. I took him right back and he lanced it, and did blood work. He had a raging infection. Then Kane stopped eating completely, started sleeping all the time, and lost so much weight so quickly. It all happened so quickly. And it's not like it was something that Kane was hiding and that been allowed to go on and on without treatment, he was treated less than 15 hours after it happened at the avian vet, and was treated by me less than 2 hours after it happened with antibiotics. But it all just happened so quickly...
I thought I was going to lose him. He's only 8 months old, I've only had him since the end of November. That's not nearly enough time. This can't be happening. Not now. I made the decision that Kane was not going to die. He just wasn't, I wasn't going to allow it. Not now, not ever. Not on my watch.
I started staying up with him all night, every night. I watched him while he slept on my chest every night, as I laid on the couch watching TV (thank God for Netflix and Amazon Prime). I did multiple syringe feedings every day with critical care formula and Pedialyte. I gave him his antibiotic injections, his oral antibiotics (2 different ones), his probiotics by oral syringe. I soaked his foot three times a day in a mixture of Hibiclens, Betadine, saline, and Epsom salts. Then we used topical Terramycin and a hard little cast I made myself out of fiberglass and resin I bought at PepBoys! The vet gave me soft gauze to wrap it in after using the topical antibiotic ointment, but Kane wouldn't let it alone, so I thought it was never going to heal. So I went to Petco and bought the fiberglass and the hardening resin, cut it, formed it to his toe with the gauze on it, and hardened it. Then we put it on overtop of the antibiotic ointment and the gauze wrap, and I must have made 30-40 of those little casts because I changed them out 3-4 times a day. And slowly Kane started talking again, started to pick at his pellets and his seed mix, then his veggies, then he started saying "gimme kisses" followed by his little kiss sound. It was the best thing I've ever heard. I'm crying right now writing this. He was so close to dying...
Now his toe is almost 100% healed over. We had to amputate a little tiny bit more bone in order to make a usable flap. It looks really good, just one little piece of healthy scab left on top, that's it. The stump is completely healed over, and is nice and pink! My avian vet did a fantastic job, I love him so much. And I owe him the world.
Kane needs to gain a bunch of weight back, he's very skinny. He's eating his normal amount of pellets, seed mix, veggies, etc. but I'm not sure what to give him to put the weight back on him. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know, I'll be in the Harrisburg/York area tomorrow all day, so I can pick pretty much anything up from any pet store or several vet clinics down there. I'll post a photo of him below, he's not horribly thin, like emaciated, but he's skinny and I don't like it!!! But he's alive and he's healthy, and his foot is healed. So that's all that matters!!!
Oh yeah, he's got a brand new cage too, a square one instead of the dometop. Never again. I researched it and this has happened several times before. That's another post though...
He's such a good boy...
"Dance like nobody's watching..."
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So so happy to hear he is on the road to recovery.
