Bad Nail Injury on RFM

Tonight after I came home from my rotation (for class) at around 9:30pm I could hear Valentino calling to me when I pulled the car into the garage. He was in the cage the lights were on low but he was calling to me. I went upstairs to change clothes into crappy ones so I can clean his cage and let him out. I get downstairs and turn on the dining room light and Valentino was just SCREAMING AT ME. He startled me and I dropped the broom and it fell against the cage. After I sweep the floor I look at Valentino getting ready to let him out to have him go to his Java tree and there was BLOOD all over the cage bars by where he was and all over his perch closest to the door. I calmly opened the door and Valentino would not step up for me. I slowly worked him out of the cage and found the source of the blood from a ripped toenail. It bled a LOT. I used pressure and flour to get it to stop bleeding. All the joints on that toe were fine. Nothing broken but I am just not sure what caused the toenail to shatter like that. Either the broom handle hit his nail or he somehow shattered it hitting it against something in the cage? I just don't know. He was pretty traumatized by the experience but I was able to calm him right away so I could treat him. I also hand fed him tonight pulverized Tropican his adult pellet.

I am afraid he could open the wound and it would start bleeding again. I have never experienced a nail injury this bad. It seemed to me he lost quite a bit of blood for such a small injury. Should I be worried he could bleed to death? Should I take him to the ER tonight. He has been put to bed but I will check him before I go to bed.

I am a parrot groomer. As long as you got the blood to stop it will be fine. It does look look like a lot of blood that comes out of those little toes. I would check on him again to make sure that it has stopped.

Thank yoi Shelly for responding. It took some time to stop and it is quite sore for him. He pulls the foot tight up to the body fluffs up and makes baby noises. Poor Valentino. I am going to shut down and go to bed now after I check him. I will update his condition tomorrow.

Gosh, how scary... I would think since you heard him calling and that was out of the norm, he probably did it before you got home. Unless you did see there was no blood before you started sweeping? Hopefully he will be ok.

Poor Valentino! I hope his toe isn't too tender.

NAAWW!!! Poor Valentino and poor Rebecca!!! Can't wait to hear how he's doing today.

I, too, wonder what happened to the nail.

Sorry to hear Valentino was injured. Hope he is doing ok this morning.

I've seen them get caught in toys and quick links, and everything else.

It happens. Every once in awhile a bird with break a blood feather playing as well. Hasn't happened to me recently, but it has happened...

He'll be okay now that the bleeding is stopped. That's the big thing. Keep an eye on it til it heals.

This happened to my rb2 Nigel. He got his leg band caught on a quick link. His nail didn't really bleed until a couple of days later and then it was ALOT! I didn't even notice until after his nail fell off. Once it fell off it stopped bleeding. His toe now looks like I chopped it off, I get sad everytime I look at it! He will always be a bird with one toe that looks like it is chopped in half! Keep an eye on the toe, like I said Nigel's didn't start bleeding until about 48 hours after the injury.

It was a long night but Valentino is doing alright. He has a very sore toe but his foot is okay. No more bleeding but I will need to watch him. I am debating calling in not to go in today for my rotation so he will not be alone. Lupe does not get home until around 6PM and I have to leave here around 3:30PM to drive across town.

I gave Valentino his breakfast (fresh mix with sprouts and Spinach) and while I was prepairing I took him out and he was pretty quiet. He begged from me to hand feed him and I almost did but instead after I prepped his food I put him back in. He is very quiet and probably still in a lot of pain. Last night he would not let me touch his head but today I was able to touch him anywhere on his head. I think that was because I had to restrain him while I worked on his nail to get it to stop bleeding. I don't see much trust lost with Valentino, he still wants to be with me and I can still touch him anywhere. I massaged his foot for him and it pinked up real nice. He does seem to have a lack of appetite unless I hand feed him ground up pellets though a syringe like he is a baby. I wish I could put something in the formula to help with his pain.

If he does not eat his fresh food I might need to hand feed him. However this is probably a double edge sword as I don't want him to think I am going to hand feed him everyday. I just don't want him to not be eating because he is in too much pain.

Valentino is not jibber jabbering or playing at all. He is too quiet because his nail is sore and I am sure he is still in pain.

noblemacaw said:

It was a long night but Valentino is doing alright. He has a very sore toe but his foot is okay. No more bleeding but I will need to watch him. I am debating calling in not to go in today for my rotation so he will not be alone. Lupe does not get home until around 6PM and I have to leave here around 3:30PM to drive across town.

I gave Valentino his breakfast (fresh mix with sprouts and Spinach) and while I was prepairing I took him out and he was pretty quiet. He begged from me to hand feed him and I almost did but instead after I prepped his food I put him back in. He is very quiet and probably still in a lot of pain. Last night he would not let me touch his head but today I was able to touch him anywhere on his head. I think that was because I had to restrain him while I worked on his nail to get it to stop bleeding. I don't see much trust lost with Valentino, he still wants to be with me and I can still touch him anywhere. I massaged his foot for him and it pinked up real nice. He does seem to have a lack of appetite unless I hand feed him ground up pellets though a syringe like he is a baby. I wish I could put something in the formula to help with his pain.

If he does not eat his fresh food I might need to hand feed him. However this is probably a double edge sword as I don't want him to think I am going to hand feed him everyday. I just don't want him to not be eating because he is in too much pain.

Valentino is not jibber jabbering or playing at all. He is too quiet because his nail is sore and I am sure he is still in pain.

Click to expand...

This is why I ended up taking Nigel to the vet. He was very quiet and didn't play like he normally did. The vet gave him a shot of anti-inflammatory, he said it would last a week. This was when he turned a corner. He was back to his old self within a day of his shot. Maybe a trip to the vet just to see if there is anything that can be done right now for the pain.

Once it is healed or if you go to the vet, also make sure the nail is smooth so it can't get caught on anything. A splintered nail can catch on everything.

I talked to Dr. Blair today and it is decided that I will be taking in him for her to check him. I want to make sure he is in the right direction for recovering and not going in trouble. I would rather be safe than having to rush him to the ER later today.

So going to get ready to take him in to the clinic. I will have to drop him off and pick him up later. Today is Surgery day and Dr. Blair will need to see him when she can. Don't like dropping him off but rather be safe than sorry and hopefully will help with pain management.

That's good you are bringing him in, if nothing more than to get him some pain meds. The vet may bandage it as to keep the area clean and giving him a bit of support on it, and keep it safe from bumping it etc.

My Pionus toe was severed and it took about 3 weeks for her to get strength back in her whole foot and using it again.

I brought him in and on the way home Dr. Blair left a message on my machine. I don't drive and talk so I left them with land line number.

Anyway Valentino's nail split in two places. She has to cut back the nail so it would not have splinters or hanging parts of nail exposed. She has to give local to block feeling to the toe and some pain shots. My poor baby!

She is keeping him for the rest of the day to watch over him to make sure he will not begin bleeding again as when she worked on him the juicy center was exposed again. Valentino will be sent home with pain medicine to help manage his pain.

I THINK I know how it happened. He was fine when I came back downstairs after changing cloths. I wanted to clean his cage so I got the broom and began to sweep around the cages to get the food up so I can next clean cages. Valentino screamed loudly startling me and I dropped the broom and it went crashing against the cage! I THINK the broom handle hit his nail and shattered it. I have assessed his cage and what is in it and within the area of the blood bath there was nothing for him to shatter or catch his nail on. It has to be a freak accident with the broom handle hitting that nail just right as he was gripping the cage bars. This is the only thing I can think of as it happened as I was right there.

I am lucky he did not break any bones in that dinosaur footie. Even in his pain I was able to touch and move all of the toes in his foot and all the joints up to his hip. I was even able to gently check and move the joint right by the nail. His foot if fine as there was no bruising today on any of it. I was able to examine his whole foot because I touch his feet every day. When we are relaxing I massage his feet every night. Now tell me...after I'm gone who is going to massage Valentino's feet for him?

Before I took him to the clinic I hand fed him. I did hand feed him before putting him to bed last night but I noticed it was going on 12 noon and he had not eaten many pellets and he didn't touch his fresh foods. He loves his fresh foods and eats it all pretty quickly. I sent him to the doctor with a full crop. LOL

I massage all of my birds feet! My older Grey will roll over on my chest with his feet up. I even started to use a little pure coconut oil and wow everyone's feet look great. My vet tells me that he can look at feet and tell my about how old a bird is, but not with my flock.

Glad its just the nail, it should heal fast now the split is cleaned up.

We got Valentino back home later this evening and he is doing much better. Dr. Blair trimmed the toe to where there was nothing hanging for nothing to snag on. He is quite sore and will have to be on pain meds for a few days. He did really well at the clinic and behaved himself. Everyone loved him.

I tried to medicate him straight out using the syringe with medication and nothing else and he FOUGHT ME. I just stared at him. Apparently medcam tastes nasty so if I am going to get it into him I am going to have to make some hand rearing gloop and feed it to him that way. He LOVES to be hand fed.

Poor baby went to bed without his pain med. Maybe he will be more willing to take it tomorrow. Valentino has had a long day and probably didn't sleep well last night but I also had a long day and I didn't sleep well either.

Take care everyone.

I'm glad everything is better now. First thought came to my mind is he would need to get it trimmed which was what your vet did. Freak accidents happen all the time, don't blame yourself too much.