Sadly, rehabbers occasionally have utterly craptastic weeks, and that was the case at LWR this past week, with a not unusual but still staggering mortality rate for the week. The great blue heron started spitting back undigested food Monday morning and died a couple of hours later. The screech, who was still not flying the length of the raptor flight but getting stronger every day, dropped dead overnight for no apparent reason. The barred owl with the wrist fracture also dropped dead for no discernible reason.
The red tail with the suspected spinal injury remained unable to use his legs at all, and while x-rays were inconclusive, we all agreed the lower spine looked odd. He was humanely euthanized.
The red tail with the suspected spinal injury remained unable to use his legs at all, and while x-rays were inconclusive, we all agreed the lower spine looked odd. He was humanely euthanized.
The red shoulder whose leg started bleeding out of the blue ended up massively fracturing that leg when we started to x-ray him. I had been treating his leg daily and it was fine; he was putting weight on it; it just had a small wound above the knee, hence the blood last week. However, when we attempted to straighten the leg for x-rays, it quite literally snapped in two, like a twig. Needless to say, the red shoulder required euthanasia too.
Then, the cherry on top of this godawful week occurred yesterday when I moved the great horneds into the raptor flight and the red tail with the broken wrist into the large crate the younger GHO had been in. The nature of his fracture and his feisty disposition led us to believe he’d be better off without wrapping the wing. This is a judgment call on a wrist fracture, and we usually nail it. Not this time. Mr. Feisty flailed around in his box so much he’s turned a stable fracture into a very unstable one, and he may also require euthanasia. He’ll be headed to Smalley’s next week for re-x-rays to see just how bad the damage is.
At least the GHOs are doing well in the raptor flight, knock on wood. The younger one is flying pretty well and letting it be known he’s not a happy camper when I walk in to feed them. The older one, who came from UGA’s vet school with a coracoid fracture and a damaged eye, is not flying high or well yet, but that’s normal when recovering from a fracture of any kind—got to “relearn” how to use the affected body part normally again. The eye still looks pretty awful but not near as bad as when he came in. So we’ll see…
The fundraiser ended with 88% of the goal met, $2635 of $3000. Words cannot adequately express my gratitude to those of you who donated; if you missed your chance, the PayPal links on the website will allow you to donate any time. It will be tight, as I was hoping for the small grant (set up by a former area rehabber to be quickly accessible to other area rehabbers with tax-exempt status in a funding crisis, which the committee managing it seems to’ve forgotten) to supplement the fundraiser, but with the $2635 I can at least manage to reopen the doors on a limited basis. We’ll take it on a week-by-week basis, hope for the best, and see how things go—and hope and pray there are no more godawful weeks like this past one (knowing there will be; it’s the nature of the “biz”…).
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