Quaker claw injury

[kk9zz]

My pet and constant companion Quaker Moses suffered a claw injury where an entire claw is missing. We were able to get the bleeding stopped using syptic powder and applying moderate pressure to his injured toe but it took several tries. We figure he may have lost 10 - 15 drops of blood. He seems OK but just a bit tired. Being a night and weekend there are no Avian vets around. The problem now is he keeps wanting to put that foot into his beak. A bandage lasted less than a minute. So what I am doing is keeping him wrapped in a towel and holding him and plan to stay up all night and my wife will do the same tomorrow in order to give his toe a chance to heal better. He really does not seem to mind much if we rub his head! I just don't want him to loose any more blood. Does anyone have any other advice on what to do? Their are no Avian vets around on Sunday either. Thanks.

Steve

[Tiki]

Steve, did you try a normal vet? You're doing all the right things that anyone can do. It's got to be very painful or at least irritating to him which is why he puts it in his beak. Holding him in a towel to keep him from messing with it and getting it to bleed again is good. You're already doing what I would do.

Try the avian vet anyway, if they are treating sick birds, someone has to go in even on a Sunday to check on them so you may catch a nurse there. My avian vet opens for a few hours on Sunday for that reason.

[kk9zz]

Hi Tiki.

There is an emergency vet clinic we called and they pretty much told us to do what we were already doing to stop the bleeding. My wife has been to them before with some of our ferrets and they really don't know much at all about birds. It seems our pets always get sick on the weekends.

Anyhow Moses seems to be doing well. I figured that since the bleeding had been stopped for around four hours I would let him loose to see how he would do. He mostly just cleaned his feet and has not caused the wound to bleed again and ate part of a potato chip and had some of my orange juice that he loves. I am watching him closely and he is sitting on his chair next to me napping though it is well past both of our bed times. Thanks for the advice.

Steve

[Monica]

You could try looking into a home-made collar, if you don't make the size too big (easy to do) or too small (birds have tiny necks compared to the actual amount of feathers around their necks). Might want to try googling that... and try to get a proper collar from a vet on Sunday if you can (easier to call around, although some may have their phone systems turned off).

[kk9zz]

Well we found an Avian/Exotic hospital about 25 miles from where we live and they never close. Moses seemed to be doing fine and then the bleeding started again so we took him to the hospital. The Vet said that he had broken a part of his toe bone off and not just his claw which was causing the problem with the bleeding. So they put him to sleep, cut off the tip of the bone, put in two sutures on the tip of the toe, put him on a pain killer and antibiotic, put a very sturdy plastic collar on him, and gave instructions that he can only be held or in his cage for 10 days. We are back home and he is not happy with the collar but it is supposed to stay on for 10 days. He can't get in his happy hut so I modified and old one and have to place him in there myself.

There may also be a complication in that part of the bottom of his toe is dark and the Vet thinks it was burned possibly at some time in the near past but that does not make sense to me that only one toe would be like that. Anyhow there is a risk if the dark/dead part does not peel off and heal and instead spreads he may need the toe amputated! The top of his toe looks fine. So we have to keep a close eye on that. I learned from the Vet that a bird regenerates lost blood usually within 24 hours as I was concerned about his blood loss. She said that being very lethargic is a warning signal of too much loss of blood. So hopefully Moses is on his road to recovery.

On a sad note one of our ferrets a female named Annabel will be crossing the Rainbow Bridge in the next few days. We and the Vet have done what we could for her. She is a bit over four years old and deaf. I told my wife that we gave her a wonderful life in that she had three other ferret friends here that make it much easier for her to be deaf as she followed their lead. Deaf ferrets as single pets are often abused by owners that do not know they are deaf as they can bite if approached wrong. My wife is a Phamacist and found that there had been some experiementing and promise with using a human drug on ferrets for her disease. The drug made her healthy and extended her life at least a couple years but alas it could not stop her disease ultimately.

Steve

[Dustin]

Glad to hear everything, so far, is going better! I hope he heals quickly! Please keep us updated.

Sorry to hear about your ferret...at least it had a good life!

[Regina U.]

How is Moses doing?

I am sorry to hear about your Ferret. You can tell how much love you have for her.

[kk9zz]

Moses is doing great. I did not mean to imply that he had lost too much blood as one may have though from reading my post. He is sitting on my shoulder now as I type. Of course he does not like the collar and he has to eat from a tall and large bowl and he is eating well. We just have to keep an eye on his toe because if the black tissue does not heal then we want to make sure that the toe is amputated because otherwise if neglected it could get to the point where we would have to have the foot amputated which we certainly do not want to do. While losing a toe is not a good thing he would get along just fine but missing a foot would be very difficult. Thank you all for caring.

Steve

[Monica]

You could try putting some Prep H, Neosporin Cream (not ointment), or even aloe vera juice to try and help heal the injury site, with hopefully leaving less scar tissue.

[Tiki]

I'm sorry about your ferret, but very happy that Moses will be OK. I have a special soft spot for Quakers. You did everything right, what a great parront!