John: Welcome to Avian First Aid Episode 6
This is Tica
Dr. Gordy is going to demonstrate towelling techniques using the demo bird, Blue, the parrot. She will also give Blue a quick exam since he had to tolerate the towelling.
For birds like Tica who know what towelling is and hate it, they can also start to hate the person doing it. Dr. Gordy clipped my bird nails so they hate her instead. She doesn't have to live with them, I do.
Dr. Pam Gordy: In an ideal world, you would have you demo bord on the floor and this is a room. If I will be choosing in this room, I will choose that corner and I will remove that chair so they can't run under it, get away from me.
The first time you tell a bird is easy, because they don't know what's going on, and then they think about it for the rest of their lives talking to you, and every time you do it, the next time it's harder.
So the way to do is you put your bird in this corner and usually you try and have like one person, not the owner, stand in one corner maybe your technician and yourself. I mean, think your bird sitting into this position, you want to try and drop the towel over like that. You put more in front because their tendency is to go forward, and then you just take them up and sweep the towel around, so that you hold their wings in. And then you can open the towel and examine them and do all of that stuff.
Now that was an easy work. Hard work number one, so you can catch before and knows the game. What he does is he certainly feels the towel drop and he starts running, and he goes like that or small bird uses his head as bulldozer and underneath your towel he goes like this, he runs over.
So in most birds, again if you can use a corner then they don't have as far to go and even walk them, so that when you put the towel down, they are right next to the wall, so they can't really go forward. Now super bath work, you can get many, many times, what he does and this is usually our experience, he will -- it doesn't matter where in the room, he doesn't care -- he will go on his back, like that, and when you go to drop your towel, his speed will come up and he will kick that towel right off or he will hang on to it, so that -- and he will reach up like this.
So in super bath work what you do - if you have the owner or the technician have like a large perch, and he primed by anything that could be -- so you put it near his feet, the technician does, and usually for at least one second you will grab that perch and he is a little bit destructed, plus he thinks he is having a lot of fun. So right at that point you drop it over and then stoop him up, but then you have to readjust your towel. So in that kind of bird you need quiet a big towel, if you have one that's too small, then he still wins because your towel may not cover this much and you've got let him go start over.
Female Speaker: Now the reason I chose Blue for this demonstration is he has always hated being toweled and he will just fight. So I want you to see that it's okay they are screaming, it's okay if they are fighting that if you do this properly, you are not going to hurt them. So we prepare business for you.
Dr. Gordy: So I used the wall because was starting to do the -- I can get out of here with the bulldozer thing. So then once you have your bird -- I am going to do a quick exam over here.
So if you hold them you can fold the towel out to have a look at their head. So look at the nostrils to see if there is bleeding from the nostrils. If your bird has just hit a wall, bleeding from nostrils or ears, means that you have a much more serious injury than if you have a bird that's hit a wall and may be is a vowelly but you are not seeing anything else.
You need a speculum if you are going to look in side the mouth, and looking inside the mouth would be if you have a bird that is choking or breathing funny, and you can use a perch, they will usually come out and bit it or a pen and they will come out and bite it and then you could have a look inside. And then once I am done looking at the head. I usually cover them. Most birds are quiet, occasionally you will have one that is quieter with the towel often, if that's so, that's fine.
They tend to like to chew on towel, that's fun for them. So then you can expose the body and you can have a look at the front part, the chest. The chest is a common site that would bleed if they hit a wall or fell down hard. You might a see a cut along here, you can have a really good look at the toes and feet which are common sites for injuries as well.
If you are going to examine wings, you should put the bird flat on a table, and the reason is that when you go to spread that wing out, if they are loose, the wing can get back and you can just locate the shoulder. So this way you can hold them flat against the table and you can extend that wing out. And usually also at this point if I need to get detail, look at this, if we had prolapse in that bird, I will just hold the bird so that you can get a better look at it.
John: That is the general first aid portion of these videos, so in the next episode we will deal with common injuries and specific emergencies.
We will see you next time on our Avian First Aid.
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