Arnica for injured wild birds

[pkid]

White-throated sparrow just flew into the window so hard it startled the dogs.

Poor thing was laying on its side, breathing heavy, looking terrible. I gloved up and put it into a shoebox filled with soft paper towels with ventilation holes punched in the top.

Still looked terrible after 10 minutes.

Went inside and grabbed some Arnica 1M, half-dissolved a few pellets in some water, and eyedroppered a few drops onto its bill -- it is starting to look a little better!

Naturally I don't know if the Arnica mattered, I can only compare to a Dark-Eyed Junco I had hit the window, boxed up similarly, and took an hour or so to get over the shock to be able to fly away.

I just hate this kind of stuff. At least the poor thing is alive. Really hope there are no broken wings or legs.

 

[Brooks]

I worked in a bird rehab group in graduate school, a long time ago. I so wish I had known something about homeopathy then. It really would have made a difference.

The Arnica will help no matter what. A homeopathic vet I got to know from the Netherlands is of the opinion that animals need frequent dosings of relatively low potencies, but I've never seen any concensus from other hom. vets.

The sparrow will let you know if there is a problem with its wings or legs. If broken, the wing will probably not be held symmetrically to the other (some part of it will droop). It won't be able to stand on a broken leg.

My favorite article on injuries is the following: http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/lewis_sports_injuries.asp

 

[Herbmountain]

Pkid. I used to have the same problem. My front window...very large, reflects the oak forest and many times birds would fly into the glass. I was able to stop that by keeping the blinds shut but open the panels a little to let in the light. It did the trick. Many times I found the birds passed out on the deck only to come too in a few minutes. The worst problem is if they get a concussion. Just give it time. Brooks may know better than I how to feed and water the bird. I do know handling them as little as possible is wise as they can die from stress alone. Hope all goes well and bless you for caring.

 

[Brooks]

Here is an excellent website on treating wildlife homeopathically. (Sorry, I didn't have access to the link yesterday.)

http://www.ewildagain.org/Homeopathy/homeopathy.htm

 

[pkid]

Herbmountain,

We've got one whole side of the house that is window at ground floor -- that's the one they hit most often (Dark-eyed Junco last year I was able to protect until it shook off the cobwebs), and a yellow warbler I found that didn't make it.

What's weird is the sparrow hit this TINY window on the other side of the house, little thing that's about 10" wide x 2' tall. With no bird feeder on that side of the house, and some sticky black hawk silhouettes stuck to the window to try to prevent just that.

Brooks - I actually ran into the ewildagain site about a year ago (reading up on things after the junco hit), and it was that exact site I was remembering in my head when I went to go get the arnica.

Wings good, legs good -- after about 45 minutes in the box the sparrow flew off into the forest, landed in the shade of a tree and rested another good 15 min. Then started walking around, hopping, flew a little more. I think it made it.

The really... (interesting? creepy? uplifting?) part is that this morning as DW-to-be is watering some of the plants in the room with the wall-of-windows I mentioned, a white-throated sparrow comes up to the window sill as we're talking and starts staring at me. She's confident it is the same bird coming to see us and say thanks. But then maybe that part belongs on the thread I started over in REL.

We don't often get birds on the window sill looking into the house. One of the few times I can remember it in the past is when we were going to leave to a comedy show (Lewis Black!) and brought the feeders in early (because of bears) while it was still light outside. A little immature tufted titmouse came to the window and just begged and begged and cried and screamed and shook and shuddered its wings and pecked on the window, the most helpless, sad, pathetic begging I've ever seen a bird do in my life. If you've seen a bird begging for food from its mate or parents, that's exactly what this bird was doing through the window at us. Of course we put the feeder back out afterwards.

What I've learned for the next time -- it would be nice if I just had a wet dose of arnica available at all times. Immediately after the bird hit, it was on its side, breathing heavy, bill wide open -- it would have been so much easier to administer arnica with an eyedropped at that point, rather than after the bird had recovered slightly and wasn't keeping the bill open. All I could really do was dropper some onto the bill and hope it gets into the system. Also, I should have ground the pellets somewhat first, rather than just drop them into a bottle of water and shake, they dissolved slower than I would have liked. It was also very helpful that I still had a shoebox shoved full of paper towels with ventilation holes poked left over from the junco (who was jumpy enough I didn't even try to box him). I would have hated to be running around the house trying to whip that up while the bird was still exposed outside.

 

[Brooks]

The diurnal bird species should all quiet right down if you make their quarters fairly dark. If they may be hurt it is advisable to keep them quiet for a while.

Something I learned recently about wet dosing - the pellets do NOT need to dissolve before you administer the dose. Drop the pellets in the water and shake the bottle vigorously. You're ready to go immediately. Something to do with being an energy medicine and/or because the active ingredient is sprayed onto the outside of the sugar pellets. So, you should be able to administer it very quickly.

Later on, if the bottle runs low, you can add more water. However, adding more pellets is not needed or appropriate - it will decrease (i.e., dilute) the potency and therefore could antidote previous dosings to the same person/creature.

Unless you are preserving the wet dose with a bit of alcohol (and keeping in the dark, keeping in the frig...), you probably don't want to keep the wet dose around for too long. Better to have pellets and a fresh bottle available. I keep 1/2 pint Poland Spring bottles handy for that purpose (and also a batch of unused eye droppers, which I use to dose my cats).

 

[pkid]

That's very useful to know that they don't need to dissolve fully. It means I've let myself and DW be uncomfortable for a bit too long while I waited for it to finish. Learn something every day.

Now I just need to learn to remember to administer these things to myself when I do something stupid -- I can always immediately think of what someone else needs, but nearly sprain my ankle and don't think to take anything for hours afterward.

I don't know if I should have kept the bird in the box longer. My attitude was that once they are capable of flying, they're probably ready to be free. But I have no real training on the subject. The junco last year flew up into a tree and stayed there another hour or so watching me before it flew off to rejoin its flock. What I didn't want to do was keep it in the box so long that it would be getting dark by the time I let it free.

Opened the box three or four times before the last one when it finally flew off, so I know it wasn't ready those times. The hardest part is picking them up to put into the box while being so afraid you'll scare them more or injure them. I guess the nice thing about them being in shock is they don't notice or care what I'm doing.

 

[Brooks]

An alternative to keeping the bird in the box is to set it under a thick bush until it is ready to take off. Assuming, of course, there is no injury. If it is still dazed it will be more vulnerable to predation, but then that happens sometimes. If it flew away strongly and evenly, it was probably ready enough.

Here are a couple of good FAQs on dosing (yeah, I'm "Samantha", LOL).

http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/lewis-faq-homeopathy.asp
http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/lewis-faq-homeopathy2.asp

Arnica really is one of the wonder drugs, well any remedy that was the right one. It made all the difference to me when I was rear-ended earlier this year. No real injury, but badly enough jarred that it affected me both physically and mentally. Elaine scolded me for not taking Arnica until I got home because some things you really do want to take immediately. The thing was, in Arnica style, I "felt fine" at the time. I tend to carry Arnica with me. You can even keep it in your glove compartment. Apparently the heat (unless it is really, really bad) isn't the issue I would have expected.