Two weeks ago I picked up a white fronted amazon hen in Plano. She had flown into a lady’s yard who noticed she had a mass on her bottom. It appeared that the white front amazon had been egg bound and upon finally expelling the egg had prolapsed her “bottom”. The bird was taken to a Plano vet who reduced the prolapse and placed two sutures in the cloacal muscles.
Two weeks ago I picked up a white fronted amazon hen in Plano. She had flown into a lady’s yard who noticed she had a mass on her bottom. It appeared that the white front amazon had been egg bound and upon finally expelling the egg had prolapsed her “bottom”. The bird was taken to a Plano vet who reduced the prolapse and placed two sutures in the cloacal muscles.
The bird was then transferred to Bird Tails to recover. After 5 days the prolapse was obvious again, one suture had dissolved but one was still in place. I called the local vet who suggest I manually reduce the prolapse twice a day, wash the bird off and coat the cloacal area with Preparation H. I did this for one week. When the second suture dissolved the prolapse became complete.
After a conference meeting with a local avian vet we agreed to surgical intervention, again. An ultrasound showed no other eggs were present. Under general inhalation anesthesia, the cloacal muscle was wedge cut in four quadrants and sutured together to form a much smaller cloacal ring. Then due to a mega-bowel that was atonic, a suture was placed high in the bowel through to the abdominal wall. There was noticeable bleeding but she appeared to clot well. Slight pink tinged urine for four days then “normal” loose stools.
This morning, after eating and drinking, the little white fronted amazon fell from a low perch and died in my hands. I immediately took the bird back to the operating vet for a necropsy. We had to learn from this, to know more the next time.
To quote the Veterinarian : “Looks like she popped 3 stitches and has some hemorrhage by her vent. She also appeared to have some entrapped small bowel although it still looked healthy and not like the bowel was dying. I’m more inclined to think she died of hemorrhage into her lower abdomen than the entrapped small bowel. Anyway, sounds like she was on the road to recovery, even the previously prolapsed cloacal tissue looked good although still very stretched out and with no tone.”
We have had very few birds die at the Sanctuary and I am very sad.
