Imping a train on a Red-tailed hawk

This bird belonged to a falconer whose house caught fire and in its panic, broke off all the tail feathers...

Denise and Roman update...

New patient...

Update on Denise the Red-tailed hawk!

New unexpected baby chicken!

Latest patient, Denise the Red-tailed hawk

Hey ya'll,

I'm hoping that I can pursuade our email subscribers to click on the BlogSpot link and come over to this site to read our updates so I don't have to transcribe both. It isn't hard, just time consuming. Also, for those of you who are on our email list and decided to click on this link, it's a lot easier for you to view the videos using this format.

"Roman" is doing really well! Although Dr. Martinez hardly ever sees wounded crops and was looking forward to a the repair, we were delighted with the bird's progress throughout the week leading up to the surgery date. Kept on anti-biotics and flushed twice daily with the super-duper salt solution, the gaping wound is nicely scabbed over and he is able to eat more at one time. (see video below). He may end up losing some crop space due to scar tissue/adhesions, but he's a heap site better than he was before! NOW, let us hope the feathers come back in correctly and not corkscrew.

"Denise" is our newest patient who presented yesterday, Friday the 13th. A nice lady called to tell me of a hawk that had been struck by a vehicle very close to where I live, which was why I was able to go do the rescue myself. Her entire left side has been compromised but our immediate concern was an open fracture of the lower part of her keel with subsequent blood loss. We tried gluing it, but the hole was too big, so we popped under anesthesia for a few minutess, just long enough to throw some sutures in and get her back up. With the blood loss she suffered, we didn't want her blood pressure to drop any more by keeping her under for a radiograph. We'll follow up with that on Tuesday. Thank God for my doctor! http://www.semobilevet.com/

Her eyes are so dark, I didn't even notice until this morning that she has uveitis in her left eye, which isn't good. Started her on pred drops after staining it to make sure there wasn't a defect on the cornea, so hopefully that will help with the inflammation. If there's no improvement, we'll make an appointment with the ophthalmologist this week to get her seen about. (I hope they don't make us read the eye chart). You can tell the left eye is a little smaller than the right one. Hopefully, it won't deflate or we'll have major problems.

She's a large, robust bird and has a lot of fight in her, so hopefully, she will recover from her wounds and be released back on Densmore, a scant few minutes from my home. I will caution her to stay away from dead food unless she promises to look both ways before crossing the road!

"My Morning with Hawks" video clip is a reminder of why we need "Mouse Money'. If you can spare a little, please consider helping HawkTalk with a charitable contribution. You can go over to our web site and follow the PayPal instructions, or you can drop a check in the mail to:

HawkTalk
P.O. Box 130
Holly Springs, GA
30142

Oh, we still have some calendars available for a donation of $20.00.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog....m.

My morning with the hawks

THIS is why we need Mouse Money!

New patient for HawkTalk...

This is why, if possible, I will stop and pull an animal off the road that has been killed by a car...

Update on "Roman", the Red-tailed hawk

Checking in

Hey y’all,

Just checking in on this dreary Sunday, but at least it’s 50 degrees and RAINING. Given that it’s only the 8th of January, it could be worse. A LOT worse.

All the owls were successfully released…Stacey, Wally, GW. We had to imp in some tail feathers on GW before the send-off, but that went off without a hitch.



If you watch the above short clip of the imping process, you might see a terse reply to a nasty comment left by just another fool on the hill. I don’t suffer them gladly, no I don’t.

One of my new cases is a mystery…a first year Red-tailed hawk with missing primaries. However, after I received the bird and examined it, his feather issues are the least of his worries because he has a GAPING hole on the right wide of his crop. Too week for surgery, I have been offering him very small, very frequent pieces of skinned mouse over the last week to get him built up enough so he can survive anesthesia for the surgical repair of the crop. I don’t know if he was impaled by something or if he ate something and the bone shard got stuck and migrated out causing the wound. I have him on killer antibiotics and hopefully, we can get him through this rough patch.

He wasn’t doing so well in the first clip…



But what a difference a day (and some mice) makes!



He’s on the schedule for another try at surgery Tuesday…

Look who’s come to dinner?



Feeding some grapes to my very happy chickens…



Morning chicken ritual…



I hope you are saying safe and dry today. Thank you for all the nice holiday well wishes and Mouse Money. I know it’s scary for just about everyone, but with school programs having all but dried up, HawkTalk, like Blanche Dubois, have come to rely on the kindness of strangers….m.

www.hawktalk.org

Loves me some chicky-poodles

What a difference a day makes!

MUCH better...steady as she goes.

Update on "Roman" the Red-tailed hawk

Guess who's come to breakfast?

Hank's here...

Barred Owl GW!

Visit http://www.hawktalk.org and never miss an espisode!



This is a video clip of imping tail feathers back on so he can be released!