Please send good wishes to Pretty Bird

I work in an after hours emergency animal hospital. On Tuesday, my day off, my co-worker opened the hospital at 5pm and found 2 pigeons in a box at the door. Who knows how long they were sitting in that box in the sun!

One bird was so bad off they euthanized it. The other was standing and seemed to be eating. I went to work yesterday and looked at the bird. It was alert but weak, standing hunched with slightly dropped wings. It was a beautiful bird, white with large multi color spots and a black tail. What alarmed me was there was no poop in the cage, just huge amounts green water and some urates. The bird wasn't eating at all. I did a fecal test and found parasites so I wormed her. The bird was drinking on it's own. I tube fed a little loose baby bird formula. After doing so we found that the bird had a large swelling between the legs. I though maybe egg bound. The swelling was rather soft and I didn't feel anything like an egg. The poor thing had rock hard poop stuck to it's bottom as well. I had the bird sit in a warm bath and managed to loosen most of the stuck on poop. The vent looked normal. I was hoping perhaps it was blocked up from the stuck on feces that it was constipated. I managed to get an appointment with an avian vet.

I brought the bird home with me and left it for the night on a heat disk. This morning I was happy to see she was looking brighter and had started to poop! And it looked almost totally normal. I fed her and she ate almost the entire bowl of seed. I then took her to the vet. Sadly, the swelling turned out to be a large mass in the abdomen. The vet said it's possible it could be a fatty mass and she's willing to try to do surgery to remove it. I need to call back in a few days. I'm not very optimistic but I'm hoping she will pull through. It's sad the owner didn't get help for the bird sooner.

She certainly has my positive thoughts.

Is she strong enough for surgery after her ordeal in the box?

Cynthia

Positive thoughts, for a complete recovery, are being sent from the Southwest. Please do let us know how things go.

I'm so sorry to hear about the little one who was unable to hang on. Bless his heart.

Cynthia wrote:

She certainly has my positive thoughts.

Is she strong enough for surgery after her ordeal in the box?

Cynthia

I believe so. She was not too thin, and was eating and pooping great. And she won't be having surgery for a couple days yet. The vet who took her is a board certified avian vet who has a lot of rescue pigeons herself so she is in the best of hands.