Meet and Greet

Well is was a great weekend for PEARL and in particular for Starburst!! She was at 2 Meet and Greet pre-adoption meetings where potential adopters can meet and spend some time with birds they are interested in. Starburst meet a wonderful potential adopter who has 3 conures already and is looking to add a 4th. Starburst took to her and her boyfriend right away! Another conure Named Kraken was also there and they might adopt him too if he is available!!

In addition Squiggy went to his forever home and Paco and Tootsie both have potential adopters pending the home checks! All in all a great weekend!

Bandage Off!

Today was the day we got to take off Starburst's bandage. I held on to her for dear life while Jen gently cut away the bandage with a small set of sewing scissors. It all went really well until the very bottom of the foot where the toes were removed. There the bandage is adhered to the foot where the scab is I didn't want to just pry it off for fear of it starting bleed. We cut away as much as possible and we are just going to wait for the rest to come off on it's own. Chances are Starburst will chew most of it off herself or it will fall off on its own when the scab comes off. The leg underneath is pretty featherless and pale.

Bath Time

We moved Starburst into a bigger cage today! She got the OK from the vet the other day to be in a larger environment so she moved into Herbie's old cage. Her first order of business was a bath.  She has had a small little water bowl for the last month to keep her from getting her bandages too wet. She loved having a larger bowl she could get into. She did manage to keep her bandaged leg out of the water but I'm sure that wasn't on purpose.

Her bandages can come off tonight or tomorrow so we are excited for her to finally have a unwrapped leg!

Recovery Time

Well there it is the one toe that is left, but sad as that is Starburst doesn't seem to mind at all. She is still her playful and adorable self!! She had a good time licking the condensation off this bottle:

She is also starting to fly around alot more. Today she has taken off a number times. Once when she was startled and a couple more to be closer to us. She is getting much better at it. Now that she is free of that heavy splint she is able to fly much better!

Vet Visit tonight

Starburst saw Dr. Wagner again tonight and the visit went pretty much as expected. The doc first put her under anesthesia and began to cut off the splint and bandages. He examined her leg and said it appears like the break is pretty well healed but that as he though he was going to have to remove 3 of her toes. He cut them off and thinks the other toe might still be OK. He then bandaged up the leg and we were good to go. Starburst has to have the bandages on for another 5-7 days and has to take some antibiotic for a while. Check out the videos below if you want to see the visit, but a word of warning the 3rd video has the toe removal. Not that bad really but if you are squeamish you might want to skip it!!

Here she is with just 1 toe....I'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow.

Friends

Starburst was hanging out on Jen's shoulder today. He had one side while Chuckie had the other. Chuckie is one of our other foster birds.Starburst has another vet visit on Tuesday. Bit nervous for her, I'm hoping that all is OK with her leg!

Physical Therapy

Ok, so Dr. Wagner suggest I start Starburst on some physical therapy to help rehab the leg. He just suggested that we try to make her use the injured leg to build up her strength. He suggested we get her walking around or try to get her using a perch.We started with getting he to walk around the floor.

As you can see she doesn't really seem to be using the leg very much at this point. She just seems to drag it along. She doesn't really seem to put much weight on it yet. No being an expert on avian leg recovery I have no idea if this is good or bad. I suspect it is is difficult for her to use because it is straight and probably stiff so maybe this will improve. I also tried leaning a wire shelf  against the couch for her to climb and possibly put weight on the leg when climbing.

 

She seemed like she was putting a little weight on it but not much. What concerns me is the toes. Doc said she is going to lose at least 2 of them possibly 3. She doesn't seem to be gripping with the toes at all, but hopefully this will improve with time.

Vet Visit Update

Well we are home from the vet and the news is a mixed bag, some good some not so good, but Dr. Wagner has high hopes for a decent outcome and recovery. Starbust came through like a champ! Here are some pictures from the visit;

First are a couple shots of the xray of the leg. Dr. Wagner explained that the leg is healing but not healing correctly. As you can see the leg bones are not lined up correctly. Despite this the bones are knitting together and healing just not in the right way. This can happen and still be OK but chances are the leg might be weak and might break again. We are going to to let this heal for another 2 weeks and check it again. 

Ever wonder how they anesthetize a bird? Well so did I. They use gas and put this big cone over the whole bird. After a couple of minutes Starburst slumped over asleep. Or so we thought. When the cone came off she entered a "excitment phase" where she flopped around all over knocking things off the table. A few minutes more and she was really out.

After she was out the vet put the little cone over her beak and used scissors to cut off the old splint. It was really well wrapped. Once it was unwrapped he took xrays and examined the leg. It turns out the Starbust is probably going to loose at least 2 toes, possibly 3.

After it was all done Dr. Wagner reused the old splint (He said it was really nicely made!!) and used a less aggressive splint. It should be lighter and allow improved movement, but still protect the injured leg.

He wants us to start rehabbing the leg by making her use it to climb and walk. We will start working on this tomorrow!

Another vet visit.

Here at the vet again today to have the doc try to fix Starbusts' leg. She is pretty unhappy because I didn't feed her dinner. She is going under anesthesia and I have no idea if it the same for birds as it is for humans where you have to fast first so I errored on the side of caution. Hopefully it will some good news for the poor bird. She is really sweet I hate to see her hobbling around.