2014 Shin

[PeteJ]

Hi Keith, yep she's been under lights since early November. For most of Feb and March she was falling apart but it's since slowed down. Her last feather to drop was a #1 primary last weekend.

I'm stuck between wanting a complete molt, and wanting to get her going again. If I go with option B I'm sure we won't be able to keep a perfect tail this time around.

What do you think?

They do seem to have a vastly superior feather construction as adults, and plus they seem to handle them with better discretion. So chances are quite good the tail will end up intact at the end of the season.

[jeffandheidi]

I've had a difficult time finishing my final post on Ruby's. I would have something typed out, only to delete it for some reason instead of clicking on 'post reply'. I guess it's the finality and closure that she's gone. I knew every time we went hawking that there were risks from Coopers hawks, windows, fences, cars, cats, etc. Ruby died from West Nile a few weeks ago. I never really considered that to be a real risk to her since she was kept in our house anytime we weren’t in the field. When we were hawking she was always in motion so I didn't think mosquitoes could really get to her.

By early June she hadn't dropped any more feathers so I settled for an incomplete molt and began cutting her weight a few grams at a time, hold weight for a day and then drop a few grams more. She still had some primaries and tail feathers growing in, but they were almost done so we started hawking. By the end of June we started driving around cruising for starlings. She had a couple slips, caught one, but it seemed like anywhere we found starlings down they were always in a place I wasn't comfortable letting her go, mainly due to traffic. I worried some about her carrying but eventually came to the conclusion that anything she was likely to carry wouldn't be enough to keep her coming back to the lure when she was done. The little pig that was. Fortunately she never carried.

Our main fields were about knee to waist high grass with all the rain we had this spring, and she quickly got back into the swing of making daily kills. Unfortunately they were usually the tiny little miscellaneous field birds that liked to stay in tall grass. She didn't know the difference though, she would catch something and trade for the lure just as easily as when we ended last fall. While she was eating her lure meat, I would skin the dead bird she had just stepped off of and allowed her to eat it on the lure also.

After a couple weeks of this kind of daily routine my daughter noticed one evening that one of Ruby's pupils was larger than the other. Ruby was acting normal, ate her evening top off ration and took a bath as usual so I made a note in our journal and decided to take a day off hawking just to watch. The next day it was still widely dilated, even in bright light. I spoke with Dr Tim Sullivan and set up a time to meet him the next day. That morning she was sitting with her eyes closed and having a difficult time standing. On the drive to see him she had fallen off her perch in the hawkbox and was lying belly down on a towel I had placed below her just in case. She was able to stand on my fist while he gave her a quick exam and confirmed what I had started to suspect. Before our visit with Tim I wasn’t aware that there have been cases of west nile being transferred to raptors by eating infected birds. He agreed that mosquito bites weren’t the likely cause since she was kept indoors, but many of the miscellaneous birds she had eaten at the end of a hunt. It was our best guess.
He sent us home with Meloxicam and asked me to keep him updated. She took it with no problem that day, and for the next two days she was still keeping her eyes closed but I saw her try to pick up one foot a couple times. Since she wasn't bathing or drinking anymore, in addition to dipping her food in water before I fed it to her a bite at a time, I would also get some water on my finger, and drip it onto her beak, then she would lick it off, over and over again.

By day 4 she was worse, unbalanced and would only eat a little at a time, in small hamburger sized pieces from my fingertips when I tapped her beak with it. That evening around 9pm when I was trying to get the last gram or so into her she had her first seizure. It started out slowly, and I didn't really recognize what was about to happen as her head slowly tilted back. She put out her wings for balance; fell sideways, and then the seizure started. Over the next several hours she had more than a dozen. Sometimes I would think she was going to sit up again, I could get her to take some water, then other times she would lie quietly for a few minutes with her eyes half open.

The last one happened just after 4am, and then she was still. It was over.
She was a sweet, tiny little bird with a huge attitude and I’ve thought about her a lot since then. Even going so far as to walk one of our fields and just remember her one evening.





Molt weight:

[wgtail]

Oh man a rough few days that had to be. Thanks for the post. Enjoy them like they live, day to day.

[Breeze]

Oh Jeff! SO SORRY to hear this. Hold on to the good memories.

[cobb lake john]

Rough times for sure. The virus is on everyone's minds here in Colorado as several falconers have lost birds and other reported illness then recovery. As in humans not all cases are lethal. My 12 year old gyr contacted it about 7 years ago then recovered fine. Yes it is spread by eating contaminated food. Sparrow are particularly high on the list of carriers. I've seen several around our property the were sick. I had my new Finnish gos vaccinated a couple of weeks ago and will do a second and third round.

[keitht]

I had a few good days out with that bird. You did a very good job with her which was evident when I saw her fly.

I've been up in the air about getting a third dose for my new bird. Damn you West Nile.

[falcondoc]

It really is a horrible thing for falconers and their birds to have to go through. The most recent study compared different vaccines and different protocols. With the Merial Recombitek WNV vaccine, it showed that the highest level of protection (but still not 100%) was reached after the 3rd dose. Other brands of vaccines--available in Europe--yielded even better results. For birds receiving their first WNV vaccinations, 3 doses are preferred.

[Huntndad1]

Sorry to hear Jeff. You did a great job with her.

[Dennis Samnee]

So sorry to hear Jeff.Yes you did a great job with her !
Little birds for so quickly
.
NOT your fault ,keep on hawking!!!!

[DtRooster]

sorry to hear that.

[Chris L.]

Jeff,

I am so sorry to hear this. Falconry has so many highs and can have so many lows. Just remember the fun you had with her and keep smiling about those times.

Thank you for keeping this thread. I feel like we all were able to be a part of her life. It will always be here for you to come back to.

[E71000]

Sorry to hear about this. I was just checking on the thread to see how things where going.
This was one of my favourite threads.

Best of luck