Leaving the Nest
by Dr Susan Orosz

Susan E. Orosz, Ph.D., D.V.M., Diplomate ABVP, Avian Practice, Diplomate, European College of Avian Medicine and Surgery, Professor. Dr. Orosz is a Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, specializing in Avian Medicine

Jan came with her mother and her seeing-eye dog. Well-dressed, polite, and soft-spoken, the two women had worried looks on their faces as I arrived in the waiting room. Listening to their story, I learned that the college-age daughter, Jan, had begun living on her own with her pet Congo African grey parrot, Clayton, and her seeing-eye dog. However, on yesterday’s visit to Jan’s new apartment, mom had discovered a sore on Clayton’s chest. Unable to see the wound, Jan had not noticed anything wrong. Plainly worried about her pet, she listened intently as Clayton perched in his traveling cage. There was another worry—both mother and daughter were concerned about the prospects for Jan’s newfound independence.

My staff and I took them into an exam room to take the health history of this robust and nicely feathered Grey and to perform a physical examination. Clayton stepped onto our technician’s hand, Angie, with great confidence. Cocky and self-assured, he waited for us to play with him, but we were more concerned about examining the wound. After giving him a lookover, Angie used a towel to gather Clayton in for closer inspection. It appeared that Clayton had split open the skin over his normally projecting chest, directly over his keel bone. While this is common for big-bodied birds like African greys, it is even more common when a bird’s flight feathers are trimmed severely. Attempting to fly, they find much less lift than is necessary for easy flight—like lead balloons, they hit the ground hard and can split the thin layer of skin and tissue over the keel. In Clayton’s case, the injury had not been discovered immediately, which allowed time for an infection to spread into his chest.

We would need to take some blood for tests and take X-rays to help determine the extent of the damage. Then we would need to repair the area surgically and possibly put in a tube to drain fluids from the wound.

It was interesting to note that someone had clipped Clayton’s wings the month before. Most likely, the injury had occurred shortly afterwards. Whoever had clipped his wings had cut all 10 primary feathers on each side. We normally cut four to six feathers on each side to minimize crash potential, but even then, we counsel the owner to be aware of possible crash landings and to respond appropriately.

In Clayton’s case, the bloodwork showed a moderate infection, but no abnormalities were found in liver or kidney function. Radiographs (X-rays) showed soft-tissue swelling at the site of injury and under the keel into the chest. Fortunately, no further swelling was observed.

With clinical information now in hand, we took Clayton in for surgery. We anesthetized him with an anesthetic gas delivered through a tube placed in his trachea. Next we prepared the wound area with a surgical scrub agent, draped the area surrounding the wound with sterile drapes, and began surgery. Opening the chest, we found large amounts of infectious, cottage-cheese-like pus, which could be dissected out of the wound. Because birds’ white blood cells lack certain enzymes, compared to those of mammals, their pus is not liquid. We were able to extract all visible material from the cavity, but hesitated to flush the wound due to its location. It would be too easy to flush the infection deeper into his body. Instead, we put in a small drain that Clayton would probably rip out with his beak as soon as he awakened. I closed the skin over the keel with a stent technique. This method uses pieces of plastic tubing to spread the pressure evenly across the wound, allowing it to heal even though the skin must move with each respiration. With fingers crossed, we woke up Clayton and waited to see what he would do with the tubing and the sutures.

Much to our amazement, Clayton stood up and acted like nothing had happened. He looked around trying to figure out why we were staring at him! After making sure he had recovered sufficiently, we went about our tasks at the hospital with an occasional glance to make sure everything was in order.

Clayton did well in the hospital while we waited for the skin to heal. Normally, the owner would watch over this process, but not in this case. We removed the drain, and one week later, the plastic tubing and sutures. The wound had healed without complications—what a break, considering all of our earlier concerns.

We called Jan one last time to let her know all was well and that it was time to pick up Clayton. When Clayton went home, he went with his mom to live. Jan got to keep her apartment. And Clayton, unaware of the humans’ travail and worry, continued to treat everyone and everything as though he was the center of the universe.

Copyright 1999 Susan Orosz