Taleah - The Great Escape!

Taleah was rushed into us one Monday morning. She had somehow managed to escape from her patio aviary on the Thursday prior to this and had been stuck in a tree where butcher birds and others were picking on her.

She could fly up but had not yet mastered the flying down part. After many unsuccessful rescue attempts from her owners, she finally fell out of the tree and hit many branches on the way down. She was incredibly weak and could barely hold her head up when she arrived at the clinic. She was rushed straight out into the theatre for critical care including oxygen, a special warmer that keeps the air quite humid and intra-muscular fluids.

Her poor owners thought she had broken her legs as she couldn’t stand. Thankfully there were no broken bones, just a very weak and exhausted bird. Taleah had obviously had quite a hit to the head also as she was showing a few signs of head injury. She was not in a good way!

We did a blood test on her which showed her white blood cells were fighting an infection and also showed she had some muscle damage and she very low blood sugar levels.

In addition to the critical care we gave her two different types of pain relief, an antibiotic and a nutritious feed. Once she had stabilised we set her up in one of our heated wards while continuing her fluid therapy.

For now all we could do was hope she had the strength and the willpower to pull through the next 24 hours.

On Tuesday morning she was still quiet but was sitting on her perch and even managed to eat a few almonds for us. She was still on heavy pain relief, antibiotics and syringe feeding. Over the day we weaned her off the stronger pain relief to see how she would go.

That evening she was definitely brighter but she still stayed with us!

By Wednesday morning she was almost back to her normal self. She was vocalizing when we went into her ward, she was eating more on her own and she was perching happily and was no longer fluffed.

A repeat blood test showed the white blood cells were much improved so it was decided we would send her home to her very relieved owners where they would continue pain relief and antibiotics.

She has been back twice for rechecks since then and is looking fabulous! She is now returned to the happy noisy macaw she previously was.

Hopefully she’s learnt home really isn’t that bad a place to be!