Ltygress
New member
- Jan 6, 2015
- 49
- 0
- Parrots
- Blue and Gold Macaw named Stewie, Blue and Gold Macaw named Bazinga, Male Eclectus named Nicholas, Unknown Severe Macaw named Zander
First, the story. I own three macaws and this one cockatoo. So I've posted her story, but it was lumped in with that of my other three birds on the macaw forum.
Cali is a 20-year-old Moluccan Cockatoo who has been through hell in her short life. Twelve years ago, her owner 's daughter stabbed Cali in the head. I don't know the circumstances around the stabbing, but I know she has bad hearing and is almost completely blind. One side of her head (her right) seems to be her normal thick skin, but perhaps stretched. It keeps that eye from closing completely. As a result, the eye has dried out and scabs over regularly. This same side of her head has a hole in the skin for her ear, but it isn't rigid, and the hole actually sits about 1cm below the ear canal. The other side of her head has some very thick skin with feathers sagging right by her eye, and then VERY THIN skin behind that, which completely covers her ear canal. There is no hole at all. The sagging skin also pulls thinner skin over about 3/4 of her eye socket giving her a VERY reduced range of vision. But the eyeball itself is healthy! For this issue, her vet (not even an avian specialist) suggested a skin graft. But the owner couldn't afford it, so she never got one.
Several years later, the owner's dog attacked her. No skin graft was recommended this time, but she did lose part of her toe. As a result, she will never have a claw on the longer back toe of her right foot.
And then last year, something changed and Cali began self-mutilating! I don't know what those circumstances were, but she had a wound about the size of a half dollar, and pretty deep too. That's when her owner FINALLY decided to give her up, and she came to me. The day I picked her up, she was actively bleeding with huge chunks of dried blood on her feet. She was also very lethargic.
She went onto antibiotics and was bandaged up. The vet wanted to put her in a collar, but I wanted to try something from flightquarters.com. It was actually a hoodie for my bare macaw, but the macaw refused to get used to it. So I tried it on Cali. She tore up the parts of the hoodie, but it successfully kept her off of the bandaging. THEN she discovered my long hair, and the hoodie was left alone too!
Today her bandages came off again for a dressing change, and the pic is gross but shows SO MUCH improvement!
Most noticable is the new growth on the left, in the shape of a triangle pointing inwards. The wound was almost perfectly round, so all of that is new skin growth! But in addition to that, she has an actual scab over the entire wound! It now has it's own barrier against infections! The bottom of the wound also shows some new growth as well! And the blood feather growing out right under it is great news!
The area over and all around the wound looks wet, but that's actually heavy application of vaseline to keep the gauze from sticking to the wound. We're waiting now for antibiotic injections in the wound, and then it will be redressed. But the entire time I have been typing this, she hasn't touched the wound like I expected her to! So it's very likely that the cause of mutilation has also been fixed!
Once the wound finally closes, we'll begin working on fixing her eyes, and possibly her ears. But I was so excited about the new skin growth, I had to share! Sorry forvthe gross pic...
Cali is a 20-year-old Moluccan Cockatoo who has been through hell in her short life. Twelve years ago, her owner 's daughter stabbed Cali in the head. I don't know the circumstances around the stabbing, but I know she has bad hearing and is almost completely blind. One side of her head (her right) seems to be her normal thick skin, but perhaps stretched. It keeps that eye from closing completely. As a result, the eye has dried out and scabs over regularly. This same side of her head has a hole in the skin for her ear, but it isn't rigid, and the hole actually sits about 1cm below the ear canal. The other side of her head has some very thick skin with feathers sagging right by her eye, and then VERY THIN skin behind that, which completely covers her ear canal. There is no hole at all. The sagging skin also pulls thinner skin over about 3/4 of her eye socket giving her a VERY reduced range of vision. But the eyeball itself is healthy! For this issue, her vet (not even an avian specialist) suggested a skin graft. But the owner couldn't afford it, so she never got one.
Several years later, the owner's dog attacked her. No skin graft was recommended this time, but she did lose part of her toe. As a result, she will never have a claw on the longer back toe of her right foot.
And then last year, something changed and Cali began self-mutilating! I don't know what those circumstances were, but she had a wound about the size of a half dollar, and pretty deep too. That's when her owner FINALLY decided to give her up, and she came to me. The day I picked her up, she was actively bleeding with huge chunks of dried blood on her feet. She was also very lethargic.
She went onto antibiotics and was bandaged up. The vet wanted to put her in a collar, but I wanted to try something from flightquarters.com. It was actually a hoodie for my bare macaw, but the macaw refused to get used to it. So I tried it on Cali. She tore up the parts of the hoodie, but it successfully kept her off of the bandaging. THEN she discovered my long hair, and the hoodie was left alone too!
Today her bandages came off again for a dressing change, and the pic is gross but shows SO MUCH improvement!
Most noticable is the new growth on the left, in the shape of a triangle pointing inwards. The wound was almost perfectly round, so all of that is new skin growth! But in addition to that, she has an actual scab over the entire wound! It now has it's own barrier against infections! The bottom of the wound also shows some new growth as well! And the blood feather growing out right under it is great news!
The area over and all around the wound looks wet, but that's actually heavy application of vaseline to keep the gauze from sticking to the wound. We're waiting now for antibiotic injections in the wound, and then it will be redressed. But the entire time I have been typing this, she hasn't touched the wound like I expected her to! So it's very likely that the cause of mutilation has also been fixed!
Once the wound finally closes, we'll begin working on fixing her eyes, and possibly her ears. But I was so excited about the new skin growth, I had to share! Sorry forvthe gross pic...
) enjoy her days with you 
