As 2023 was drawing to a close, we received a call about a bird that needed our help.
This Buzzard was involved in a head on collision with a car. The person who hit her immediately called us and was asked to bring her in.
Upon arrival, she was covered in blood and we were concerned for a major break. However, after cleaning her up a bit, it became clear that the blood was coming from her beak. Unfortunately, the impact of the collision has snapped the tip of her beak, which is made of keratin (the same as our finger nails). It is very similar to dogs nails, with a “quick” a short distance from the tip to provide a blood supply to give it strength. As anyone has cut their dogs nails too short will know, if the quick is cut, it will bleed profusely! Thankfully, there is a magical medical solution to this and the team were quick to administer potassium permanganate to help clot the blood.
The team checked her over for other injuries but found none, so she was moved to a quiet cage in our Intensive Care Room and given pain relief. For the first few days, she needed assistance eating small pieces of cut up mouse, as the tip of her beak was clearly very painful, despite the pain relief. In order to avoid any risk of further injury during this procedure, the team wrapped her up in a towel. On her first day, a blue towel was produced, and she was nicknamed Mary.
Mary being held securely for assisted feeding while her beak is still painful.
After a few days, she still seemed reluctant to eat by herself, so Mary was moved to one of our outdoor aviaries where she’d have less disturbance. Staff tried her with whole mice, which she was unable to eat, so continued providing chopped up mouse every day.
After a few weeks in our care, she is making slow progress, but is now managing to eat slightly larger pieces of meat (half a mouse rather than a quarter!). The tip of a birds beak is incredibly sensitive, so we hope that given time it will heal and regrow naturally, without too much interference from us.