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Thankful for a slow couple of weeks

11/18/2012

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It’s been a slow couple of weeks at Laurens Wildlife Rescue, with only one intake—a HBC (hit by car) king snake. I’ll be honest: I can clean maggots from an open wound without flinching; I cannot handle a snake without gloves. It’s one of those weird little quirks; go figure!

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At any rate, the person who found the snake had it for several days while searching for someone to take it, and we initially thought the fact that he had survived that long was a good sign. Consults with Richie Hatcher at Smalley’s Animal Hospital and Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends, who rehabs reptiles as well as raptors, confirmed my opinion that there wasn’t really a whole lot we could do from a rehab/veterinary perspective for a HBC snake. Since we really didn’t know when the king snake’s last meal was, the plan of action was to provide heat and a thawed rodent and hope for the best. Despite my efforts to coax the snake into eating by dragging the mouse around his pen, mimicking a live rodent, he refused to eat. I left the mouse with him for the night, in hopes he would eat; instead, I found the poor fellow in rigor the next morning.

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Many people deliberately run over snakes, thinking they’re doing a service in the process. The problem is, drivers can’t tell from their cars whether the snake in the road is poisonous or not, so they often end up killing beneficial snakes like king snakes. For the record, non-venomous snakes are protected by Georgia law.

The flyers have been placed in the pre-release pen and will more than likely be released by the next update, unless they decide to hang around for the winter. Flyers are very social and accepting of new members to their colonies, and since I have an established colony of flyers in the woods near my house, these two may take up with the colony pretty quickly.

In other news, the flicker has been released, after a couple of weeks in the flight pen to build her stamina back up after two weeks in confinement. Even though she kept that right wing at a bit of an angle, she was flying around the flight pen beautifully, and when I opened the pen door, she hauled her feathered butt out and into the trees before I could even focus the camera. Below are some shots of her in the flight pen.

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And as promised, here is a shot of her “pecking log” after her tender ministrations—I’m actually thinking about letting every woodpecker I rehab create such original “artwork” and selling it as a fundraiser! (Just kidding…I think…)

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Speaking of fundraisers, we’re again offering a calendar for next year featuring photos of 12 of this year’s intakes.  Lulu.com offered more room for creativity with the images and layout, as well as a larger portion of the purchase price for Laurens Wildlife Rescue, so the link for the 2013 LWR calendar is: http://www.lulu.com/content/legacy-lulustudio-calendar/lwr-2013-calendar/13378619

 If you’re looking for Christmas gifts for friends, colleagues and/or relatives, a 2013 LWR calendar is a great option, and all proceeds over Lulu.com’s cut will be used to support our rehab efforts in 2013.

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Support independent publishing: Buy this calendar on Lulu.
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Busy two weeks for “slow” season

11/2/2012

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Despite the “official” beginning of slow season, the critters do continue to trickle in; unfortunately, this time of year we tend to see more injured/ill adults and often there’s nothing we can do except end their suffering.

This was the case for the barred owl shown below. He was found in the middle of the road, and his left wing had an open fracture. It was an older wound, as the exposed bone had already begun turning black and the poor bird was rail-thin. Our only humane option was euthanasia.
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We had slightly higher hopes for this American coot, until closer examination revealed two open fractures, nearly hidden by the bird’s thick feathers, and multiple closed fractures, all on the right wing. Essentially, the wing was shattered, so again, euthanasia was our only option.
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Eastern screech owls rarely escape an eye injury when they have run-ins with vehicles. They don’t always sustain wing or leg injuries, but you can almost bet money on some sort of eye injury. This little gray-phase male had not a mark on him, not a feather out of place. But his right eye was filled with blood. We began treatment to bring the swelling down and wait for the blood to clear to the point that we could determine the extent of injury to the eye. This was on a Tuesday;  late Friday evening, the screech keeled over. He had eaten well Wednesday but hadn’t touched his mouse Thursday, which wouldn’t be unusual if he was still full—and he was well-fleshed, so he hadn’t been struggling for food in the wild. All we can figure is that the head injuries were more severe than we initially thought, perhaps with a slow bleed that killed him. Unfortunately, hemorrhaging and soft tissue damage don’t show on x-rays…
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This gorgeous female Northern flicker came in with a wing injury that at first glance appeared to be a fracture hidden by severe bruising and swelling. 
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A closer exam, however, showed that the bruising was actually massive infection, to the point that the tissue was blackish-green. We have no clue how the wing got so infected, but it had reached the point that she couldn’t fly. Because she was well-fleshed, alert, active and had quite a healthy appetite, we opted to give her a chance and see if we could clear this up before, as vet Shelley Baumann said, “her wing rots off.” 
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This is her wing a week later—still a bit swollen, but MUCH improved over its appearance on intake. She’s also much more…umm…vocal and bouncing-off-the-walls active. She has another few days of antibiotics before she’s moved to the flight pen prior to her release. She’s pretty much demolished the log you see in these photos; I’ll get photos of what’s left of it when I move her into the flight pen early next week.
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Thanks to Shelley Baumann for manning my camera to get the photos of me holding the flicker and the before and after wing shots!
Aaannnd…to round out this update with a healthy dose of cuteness, the flyers are down to one formula feeding a day and within the next week should be totally self-feeding. At that point, they’ll go into the big cage and be prepped for release!
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