Page 31 - Hand rearing birds second

12 Hand-Rearing Birds

Nutritional Status and Body Wounds: Assess body condition by palpating the muscle mass of
the breast and over the hips. Look and feel for areas of scabbing, bruising, and feather loss or dam-
age. In most passerines, one can blow air to part the feathers, allowing a view of the skin between
the feather tracts. This works well to spot punctures, lacerations, bruising, and subcutaneous
emphysema (air under the skin). In the author’s experience, emaciated or malnourished chicks
with major injuries do not do well, but well‐fleshed chicks may recover fully from surprisingly
severe injuries.
Skeleton: Inspect the limbs and joints. Gently palpate, flex, and extend all limbs and each joint
separately. Note the presence of pain, heat, swelling, deformities, and asymmetries, limitation of
motion, bone firmness vs rubberiness, crepitus, dislocation, or fractures. Midshaft tibiotarsus frac-
tures are quite common, with many times more leg fractures than wing fractures seen in chicks.
Check for lacerations, other lesions, and missing nails and toes. Lacerations are especially com-
mon around the knees and thighs of small birds, especially if caught by cats. Evaluate muscle tone
of the tail as limpness may indicate a spinal injury. Palpate the vertebral column and hips for inju-
ries or deformities. Spinal deformities are sometimes seen in certain species. Examine each toe and
ensure it is normally formed and pointed in the right direction. Do the feet grip?
Fractured limbs must be considered life‐threatening in wild chicks because they need to have
fully functional limbs in order to qualify for release. With a small amount of handling or thrashing
in a cage (or restraint for radiographs), a formerly fixable fracture may quickly become a limb that
requires amputation, which is usually a death sentence. Hence, it is very important to keep the
chick from flapping or kicking a fractured limb while finishing the rest of the exam. As soon as the
bird is stable enough to tolerate the handling, the fracture should be at least temporarily immobi-
lized. Fracture stabilization and repair is described in Stocker (2005) and in great detail by type of
bird in Duerr and Purdin (2017). Permanent placement for disabled wildlife is often not available.
If a wild chick is likely to be disabled to the point of not being able to function in the wild, eutha-
nasia should be considered.
Chicks with metabolic bone disease (MBD) may show rubbery or deformed long bones on physi-
cal examination and perhaps one or more folding fractures. Mild cases may present with subtle
fractures or angular deformities of the proximal tarsometatarsus or other long bones. If able to be
corrected into a normal shape, these fractures may heal well with light stabilizing external splints
while the chick’s dietary deficiencies are corrected (see individual chapters). Once placed on a bal-
anced diet, many birds will quickly calcify their long bones if the diet is corrected to a calcium to
phosphorus ratio of at least 2 : 1 (mg to mg); insufficient calcium is the usual reason for MBD in
wild chicks (Klasing 1999). If there are marked or uncorrectable skeletal deformities, euthanasia
should be considered.
Feathers: Evaluate feather condition. Malnourished chicks often exhibit poor feather condition
with ragged or broken feathers, adhered feather sheaths, and stress marks (aka stress bars, fault
bars). Abnormally whitish feathers are sometimes seen in malnourished crows, jays, House
Sparrows, and others. Missing or broken feathers may also provide evidence of predator attack.
Ectoparasites such as mites and feather lice are common.
Droppings: Normal droppings vary widely by species, but in most small‐bodied altricial chicks,
feces are enclosed in a mucus envelope. When these species have diarrhea, encapsulation is lost
and the droppings are wet, messy, sometimes malodorous, and often soil the chick. If the bird is
emaciated, droppings look or smell odd, or the bird has diarrhea, a feces examination and a mouth/
crop swab should be performed to look for parasites or budding yeast (e.g. Candida spp.). Fecal
examination may need to wait until the bird passes significant feces. Routine fecal examination of
all wild birds admitted for care is prudent, and fecal exams later in care can catch parasitism