A welcomed slower week

LWR had only one intake last week, which made for a welcome mini-break. Gotta take advantage of those small breathers when we can!

 The sole intake was a red shoulder with a broken shoulder. Sometimes fractures require x-rays to determine their severity; this one did not. It was an open fracture at the shoulder, and as y’all know by now, open wing fractures are a death sentence. He was humanely euthanized.

The red tail who came in with no fractures and seemed primarily concussed began throwing up everything that was in his very full-on-intake crop. It took him two days to finally empty his crop, and another day before he attempted to eat anything—only a mouse head—and the day after that small meal he began having seizures as he cast a very nasty dark green, slimy pellet containing the entire undigested head. Within a couple of hours, he was unable to stand and the seizures had become virtually nonstop, so I opted to end his suffering. All I can figure is he’d gotten into some kind of poison that, despite his emptying his crop, had still managed to get into his system.

The falcon is still on hold, at least for another week. Several people suggested various facilities to check out as placement options, and none of them panned out—and the facilities or raptor educators THOSE facilities suggested were also uninterested. I have a couple of other options to check out, and then we’re just gonna have to call it.

The red screech is looking like a sure release, to my delight; the gray is a bit iffier, but I have him pretty much placed already should he not be releasable. Given that they’ve only been in the mini-pen for about 10 days, we’re gonna give them both a bit longer, just to be sure and to allow for flight conditioning, as well.