Yes, thanks to several very generous last-minute donors, the fundraiser is now over, and we exceeded the original goal, with a grand total of $2410! Heartfelt thanks to those who donated to ensure these overwintering babies and additional intakes—we’re at 305 for the year now—have sufficient food. Time for another mouse order!
If you’ll recall, in last week’s update, LWR had three birds headed for Smalley’s Animal Hospital that following Monday…Well, it ended up being FIVE birds: Coop, red-tail, great horned owl and two barred owls. All on a Monday after a holiday, when things are insane anyway…
Have I mentioned how wonderful the folks at Smalley’s are? From the front staff to the kennel techs, they have the patience of saints when I show up with boxes and boxes of birds. We had an assembly line x-ray going: unbox, x-ray, box, and repeat…times 5. The results were mixed.
The GHO’s wing was trashed, with both radius and ulna broken, as well as the small bones of the “hand.” He was euthanized.
If you’ll recall, in last week’s update, LWR had three birds headed for Smalley’s Animal Hospital that following Monday…Well, it ended up being FIVE birds: Coop, red-tail, great horned owl and two barred owls. All on a Monday after a holiday, when things are insane anyway…
Have I mentioned how wonderful the folks at Smalley’s are? From the front staff to the kennel techs, they have the patience of saints when I show up with boxes and boxes of birds. We had an assembly line x-ray going: unbox, x-ray, box, and repeat…times 5. The results were mixed.
The GHO’s wing was trashed, with both radius and ulna broken, as well as the small bones of the “hand.” He was euthanized.
The Coop showed no fractures, so we did an anti-inflammatory and crossed our fingers. It seems to be paying off; he’s in the raptor flight now—still a little wobbly but improving!
The red-tail does have a wing fracture but it’s not badly displaced and should heal to allow for unimpaired flight. He’s eating with gusto, too, which is good!
One of the barred owls had a nasty wing fracture that was unfixable. He required euthanasia.
The second barred owl was cut from a barbed wire fence and, surprisingly, had no fractures—just a lot of tangled, twisted feathers. However, in wildlife rehab, as I’ve mentioned before, things are often not as they seem. He died during the night, and I still have no clue why. He was well-fleshed and showed no signs of frounce or any parasites; the only damage we found during his vet exam was a small flesh wound beneath the broken feathers, and I was treating that. Who knows?
Yet another barred owl came in last night, found sitting near the edge of the road. The husband who brought it to LWR said his wife initially passed by it and presumed it was eating prey, but when she came back the same way half an hour later and he hadn’t moved, she called her husband, who retrieved the owl from the roadside and brought it to LWR.
This small male has no discernible fractures and is fairly alert today, with some residual blood in his right eye from a concussion. He should be releasable if the eye continues to clear up, and it looks better today than it did last night.
This small male has no discernible fractures and is fairly alert today, with some residual blood in his right eye from a concussion. He should be releasable if the eye continues to clear up, and it looks better today than it did last night.
The flyers remain utterly precious. While they’re full-grown and, in warmer weather, would be ready for release now, they have no winter digs in the wild. Other flyers already have winter nests and food stashes; these babies don’t. This is why they’ll overwinter and be released somewhere around late February-mid-March, when the weather has warmed enough that it’ll be easier for them to scout out nest sites and food supplies.
And below are photos of what happens when a rehabber gets complacent and lazy when handling raptors. I was changing the barnies’ paper yesterday and failed to take into account that they’re not babies anymore. I’d gotten so used to handling them barehanded that I didn’t think twice when I reached in—with no gloves—to move them to the “waiting box” while I cleaned out their “good” box…and that, my friends, was a mistake…One of my darlings footed the crap out of my hand, and I can only be grateful that he’s still young and doesn’t have the full foot strength an adult would. The area around the thumb bled well and while swollen today, isn’t that sore or stiff; the area around my middle finger had barely a pinprick and didn’t bleed well; it’s not only more swollen, it’s also stiff and pretty damn painful.
On the bright side, I’m at least confident none of the barnies are imprinted!
And of course, those adorable barnies continue to grow apace. While they still require their mice to be cut in half, they’re not being forceps-fed now; I can just toss the mouse halves in the box and let them have at it—and look at that feather growth! As soon as they can eat whole mice on their own, they’ll be ready for the raptor flight.
And of course, those adorable barnies continue to grow apace. While they still require their mice to be cut in half, they’re not being forceps-fed now; I can just toss the mouse halves in the box and let them have at it—and look at that feather growth! As soon as they can eat whole mice on their own, they’ll be ready for the raptor flight.
Yeah, we had a little confusion to begin with as to whether pellets were re-edible...
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