John: Hey everybody, it's time for Avian First Aid, Episode 10. This is the last episode involving bleeding. Dr. Gordy is going to talk about treating lacerations and some safety tips to prevent bleeding injuries.
Dr. Pam Gordy: And then the laceration usually would be a cut on the body somewhere and that usually would happen if they flew into something sharp or in birds that have wing clips that are too short. If they try to fly and they hit a hard tile floor, a keel bone is sharp enough that it can split, you see a lot of them splits at the bottom of the keel bone. Usually the bleeding in nose is not long term, it's just the skin that splits. The ones that are worser if they get a laceration on a deep muscle bone, on the shoulder, on a chest. Usually those ones are birds that had altercations with other birds and other pets. So if they are with the mate that's aggressive.
So again what you want to do is you want to get the bleeding stopped. If you are there when it happens, pressure is best and we can just take gauze, hold it over the area. Most of the time if they haven't got a major artery the muscle belly will stop bleeding fairly soon, and then you can decide if you need to have it stitched or if you don't. The keel bone ones although they don't look serious, they are very difficult to get to heal without the stitches because once it splits the skin, the skin spreads a little bit, it's kind of stretched over that area. So often you keep getting scab and they keep falling and keep breaking it again, whereas if you can get the skin during over top they'll not protect the side area.
As a prevention with bleeding, obviously with blood feathers to prevent that from happening, one of the reasons why that happened is, if a bird has a short wing clip and then he gets one new feather, that one new feather is -- you cannot like a stored bomb -- and then he flies and he smacks it on something. So if your bird's wings are clipped. When the new feathers start growing in, be extra careful with things that you know that he does where he might fall. I know what things freak up my birds and I will put them away before that happens. If you have a Cockatiel that gets night fright, it's very difficult to predict when that will happen. So in that bird you might choose not to clip wings because the advantage of long wing is that when this one is moulting in there are feathers on either side to protect it. So if it hit the wall or smacks something its way less likely to damage clap feather.
Toes and legs, their prevention is don't let bird go another birds' cages. Be careful with the toys that they can hook things in, toys with rope that they shred. They can wrap around so take your scissors and trip those toys if they start getting worn. For small birds there are some feeders for carries and bunches they'll have a tiny little slit on the front of the feeder and often birds will perch their feet in and particularly if their nails are long they get it through there and then it's stuck and they fight and they pull it. So, I don't choose the ones with the slit, I choose the ones without, that are just blocked and then they can't hook. The other thing is, if the nails are getting quite long, trim them so that they don't hook on things. Sometimes, you'll see nails they'll go right in a circle, well they can even hook on a cage but the bird doesn't necessarily know to unhook it like this then the fight and tear it off.
With beaks, again if the beak is super over grown, go and trim it but that's usually an accident. But again if you know your birds is going to freak out about something, put them away when it happens but occasionally it won't happen anyway.
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