A severely injured young pigeon showed up looking for help. He has a head injury and is missing an eye. The following pictures are disturbing, but necessary for folks to see what's going on.





The wound has a rotten meat smell to it, which is clearly not good.

I dipped his beak in some water, but he wasn't interested.

What should I do to help him? My guess would be to put neosporin cream on the wound, give him half a baytril tablet now and 1/4 tablet for 9 more days. Maybe let him rest today and then try to force feed him corn & peas 3 times a day starting tomorrow.

That's just me guessing randomly though, so help from the experts here would be greatly appreciated.

You probably should feed tonight as the baytril can make them feel sick if they don't have food in their crop.
Louise can give you good advice about the eye as she has doctored 3 squeakers with eye loss, in the past couple of years.

Hi Jim.....Although the pictures look awful, this type of injury should not be life threating.

I have had 3 different birds with a similar injury and all have survived.

I just got off the phone with Jim, but I will also post my instructions to him.

First of all the, the bird is a Squeaker. It was squeaking when Jim rescued him. Bird looks about 4/6 weeks old to me.

I instructed Jim to make a 50/50 solution of either peroxide or benitine and cleanse the eye with a cotton ball. He states that there is yellow pus in the eye socket, and I told him not to force the pus if it is solid out, but to apply minimal pressure in an attempt to remove it. Next he is to flush the entire area with either a syringer or eye dropper with the same solution. Then to pat it dry and then apply neosporin to the entire area. This should be repeated 2/3 times a day until a full scap appears. Then it is to be kept dry allowing the scap to fall off naturally.

I also instructed him to go ahead with the Baytril for a minimum of 7 days to treat or prevent any further infection.

I also instructed him to first hydrate the baby. Make sure the bird has an ample supply of seed and water available, but to hand feed some formula if the bird does not start eating on it's own.

This bird should do fine with Jim's care, however I let Jim know that because it's sight has now been compromised that the bird is deemed unreleasable.

Poor Baby..........it looks so bad, but with all us watching over him he should be just fine. Jim has my number and can call me at any time he needs me.

Thank you Jim for caring and saving yet another one.

Louise



Also Jim..........If Charis has not already mentioned it to you, I would also treat the bird for Canker. A traumatic injury such as this could easily bring on a canker attack, so as a precautionary measure treat for canker as well.

After cleaning and flushing the wound, I was able to get a better photograph:



The yellow mass in the eye socket is what I was calling a solid mass of pus. I was unable to remove it, although I might have loosened it a bit -- after I held a cotton ball soaked with 50/50 peroxide and water against it for a minute or so, it looked like some clear fluid ran out of it. There's clearly a lot of swelling on that side of the face too.

He drank some water on his own, and, having seen Charis's post about getting food into him, I'm going to give him 30 peas. (His crop is pretty empty.)

That almost looks like a very bad case of canker. I would start him on metronidazole as well.
How does the throat look?
It will be very interesting to see what his poops look like too.

Thanks for taking in and helping this little one, Jim.

Looking at the last picture, I wouldn't rule out canker.

More than 30 peas would be better.

We posted at the same time, Charis, and it looks like we're thinking along the same line. Canker.

I wouldn't remove that plug in the face because if it is canker, doing so may cause a bleed.

Jim.....The clear liquid coming from the wounded eye is normal. It is called weeping and could continue until the bird is completely healed.

The pus being a solid mass might have to be surgically removed by a vet if it is can not be loosened enough and removed over the next few days during your cleaning procedures.

As a precautionary measure treat for Canker as well along with the Baytril. Both medications work well together and should not be a problem.

Please keep us posted of the birds progress and feel free to call me if you have any further concerns or questions.


Louise

JIm,............Have you checked inside the birds mouth and throat. Do you see any signs of Canker in there.????

This could be a canker, but it also does look like the pus plugs I have had removed from a few of my birds as well.

In any case treat for canker. Be very careful not to apply to much pressure when cleaning the area, you wouldn't want to tear the surrounding area and cause a bleed.


Louise

Louise...did Jackie's eye have a plug like that too?

No, Jackie's injury was much more extensive her entire head, eye and side of her face were all bloodied and involved. Bear in mind I found her almost immediately after the injury occured, before infection had set in.

However............Little Una's eye.......the one that lost it on the spikes on the neighbors roofs, did have a yellow pus plug like that that turned black after the antiboitic treatment and then feel off along with the eye.

That's why I think it could be either canker or infection. He needs to check the birds throat to see if there are any other signs.

I really think this bird should be seen by a Vet to be certain.

Wish he were closer, I would go to Dr. Hauck first thing in the morning.


Louise

I didn't know that canker lesions could be present in the eye sockets, so I'd thought the hard yellow stuff was pus, and that there might be something of what caused the injury under it -- so I'm also learning from this thread, and the great advice in it!

Question: Is it possible for us to tell the difference between a hard abcess and a canker lesion, or is that something only a vet can do?

Best wishes for your new patient, Jim! Hope he gets better soon!

Teresa...I had a squeaker once that had canker all up inside the sinus area. It was horrible. This one had a similar look. Back then, we though 1 spartrix pill was the cure and even getting spartrix was a major challenge. There was none available here and so I had to get it form the Seattle area. They had me put a check in the mail and the check had to clear the bank before they would send the medicine. Well,...1 pill didn't do it and so Deb euthanised the bird so it wouldn't suffer more than he already had. That bird haunts me to this day. We knew so little but we tried really hard.

With this bird, I can't tell by the picture if it's canker or an injury.