SAVING MY BIRD

Saving My Bird… and Her Babies
by Francis D. Hilario
February 2009

Early one morning last month, I visited my aviary and discovered that one of my breeders had a night fright – a very unusual occurrence for my birds. I checked the cage and noticed that my Whiteface hen’s wing was all the way down and covered with blood. Checking her wing for any injury, I saw that her wing socket and tendon were all damaged.

I knew that taking her to the vet would cost her life so I made the kind of professional judgment I saw when I was a practicing OR Nurse… saving a life even at the cost of losing a limb. I hurriedly took my emergency kit and cauterized the bleeders (to prevent further blood loss) and partially removed her wing. Making that decision was hard but I knew how important it was. Everything went well and the procedure relaxed her.

This life-saving measure not only saved my bird’s life, but also t

he lives of her babies. Four eggs were incubating in her nest and that day, to my amazement, the male took over the job of incubating their eggs. This made me think that he was aware that she was injured.

The next day, I placed the female back in the breeder’s cage and, after a few minutes, she replaced her partner in incubating their eggs. As the days passed and their routines went back to normal, I heard the tweeting noise in their nest box. The first egg hatched, followed by the second and then the third one (the last one was infertile).

I was so happy and felt proud that I had saved my bird’s life as well as those of her babies! She may have less of a wing but she did not give up for the sake of her eggs (and soon-to-be babies). This made her more very special to me. Now she and her partner have three babies that are growing bigger every day. Soon they will flap their wings to say good-bye to their mother who never gave up in spite of being in so much pain and not having that other wing to give them comfort during their incubation period.

I am pretty sure that if the mother had died, I would have lost the three babies as well. This experience not only shows how my profession as a nurse saved my bird’s life but also that that my bird and I share an important trait – never giving up easily!