New Guy Picks a Name
The new guy has chosen his name. I think it fits him well. He is a distinguished, charming gentleman duck… except when he is being goofy.
Here he is enjoying some tub time with Lester and Danny girl tonight.
Welcome, Miles. We’re happy to have you here, buddy.
New Guy, Snow and More
This is the new kid on the flock. He hasn’t told us his name yet, but I’m sure he will soon. He is a domestic Rouen duck. He came to us through a Facebook friend after spending a month at a wildlife rescue. He has a bum leg which is probably a septic joint infection. Otherwise he’s not too bad. Just a bit of parasites from his previous life on the streets.
He is on antibiotics and his leg has a good chance of improving so he can be placed in a forever home. He is not super friendly, but he’s super soft and puts up with me rubbing his belly feathers when I give him shots, so that works well.
In other news, SNOW has come to Seattle. This was just the beginning. We have just over 2″ now at home, but the bad part is the heavy snow collapsed part of the aviary net. We’re going to wait out the week to repair it as more snow is on the way. Heavy, wet snow gets stuck on the tarp that gives the kids some covered area to stay dry under. Instead of stretching the net, two poles just punched through it. I went out to sweep snow off the tarp and net, but I waited too long. I think the net is getting brittle and will need to be replaced this summer, but for now it will be an easy repair with some zip ties. We took the tarp off until the snow storms pass, so the kids will stay mostly locked up in their covered night pens. They don’t seem to mind because it’s cold and there’s no green grass or ground to scratch.
Handsome Cowboy is adjusting well to his forever sanctuary after losing his mate Monroe to a dog bite. We got a note from Baahaus that says, “He has graduated to geese, Jeff the Canada goose and Erika, the bad wing Toulouse. They are really sweet together. And can that Cowboy ever sing! He is the most talkative goose ever!”
As for our permanent residents, everyone is doing well right now. Here are a few details on some of them.
Toro is still a giant rooster ball. He is a happy, lovable character and loves his daily routine. He happily comes in at night so his early-morning crowing won’t disturb the neighbors, but he can’t wait to get back outside to hang with his lady hens all day.
Olivia is doing well, in spite of her old age. She is our oldest resident right now, next to Simon the cat. Olivia is somewhere over 10-years-old now, and going strong. She is a real sucker for Cheerios and loves cat kibble treats. Otherwise, she keeps her distance from me.
Olly Astro is doing great, too. If you recall, she was spayed after having stuck yolks and recurring reproductive problems. Even though she doesn’t lay eggs, she loves to sit on them in hopes they’ll hatch. She is a sweet girl and pretty friendly.
Petunia is a good, good girl. She loves O’Malley and even gets along well with Ramona now.
They stand together every day by the pool and preen their feathers.
O’Malley is still my sweet boy. Here he is guarding the morning treats. He is a big lovable lug and insists on lap time every day, or else! If he doesn’t get his lap time, he’ll bite until he gets his way.
Lastly, Danny girl continues to be stable. She is the runner duck who swallowed the metal. She continues chelation medication to keep metals from building up in her system, and we hope the metal will degrade and pass on its own. As long as she is stable, this is the best option. Surgery is risky so we want to avoid it at all costs. She will likely always have some residual motor function difficulty from her metal poisoning, but she is a happy, sweet girl and she loves hanging out with Lester Leroy. They make a cute pair.
That’s it for tonight. Happy snowstorms, Seattle!
Thanks and quacks,
Tiff
Goodbye Monroe
Monroe was at the vet today and we decided to give her one last try to rebound, and switched antibiotics and cleaned her up. Well, Monroe decided she was ready to leave.
Tonight after we returned home from the vet’s office, Monroe passed away as I told her what a great goose she was, and that it was okay to go.
Go on, goose. Your Cowboy is just fine. You got him all taken care of and now you can go. Safe travels and thank you for being such a beautiful goose. I’m so sorry we couldn’t do more for you. I know you tried your hardest, even though it was hard.
Rest in peace, Monroe XOXOX
Monroe Update
Monroe is back at the vet today because her wound is even more infected and she still is not improving.
The vet called and we discussed whether or not it was time to say goodbye to Monroe. It really is iffy, but we’re going to give it one more college try with Monroe. The vet doesn’t believe she is suffering, and geese are big, tough birds.
So we agreed that she will be cleaned up and cleaned out today, and we’ll switch antibiotics. She will stay on pain medication to ensure she isn’t suffering. She has an infected bone, infected dog-bite wound, she isn’t passing waste because she has nerve damage and she’s not eating because she’s full of waste. Each one of those individual problems can improve though, and she COULD recover. Together they are a tall order, but a new antibiotic and a good wound cleaning will give her one last chance. She could die today during the wound cleaning if she ruptures an artery again, but if all goes well, she’ll come home tonight and we’ll re-evaluate again this Saturday.
We all want Monroe to “win” this fight because she deserves it so much. Now it is up to the medications and her body. I think she knows we love her and want what’s best for her, even if it isn’t what we’d want for her. But it has been two weeks since she arrived and a few days longer since she was injured. Pelvic breaks take a long time to heal but she isn’t healing yet. And it isn’t fair to her to let her go on indefinitely without improvement. Monroe needs to turn a corner and improve by Saturday or we will plan to say goodbye to her then.
Thanks for all of your support.
Rescues Update
Today Cowboy came out of his pen for the first time. He really likes his pen, especially his mirror and baby pool. But he came out to visit with Monroe and even ate some grass.
Then he tried to eat the water bowl.
From various angles.
He stood guard over his girl Monroe for a while, but then it was time for Danny and Monroe to go to the vet.
Danny did good at the vet. The metal is still there, but it looks a little smaller, and she continues to gain weight, which is good. She is molting, either from the metal toxicity or the drugs to fight it, but all in all she is stable and doing as well as can be expected. She will do another two weeks of a gentler chelation drug and then go back to check in again. The goal is to get the metal to disperse on its own without having to do surgery. There’s no telling how long that will take, but as long as she is stable, it is the best option. She remains super cute.
Unfortunately Monroe’s vet visit didn’t go as well. She went in so we could check her wound and see if we could try anything else to help her system start working better. She likely has nerve damage from the dog bite and her muscles can’t push waste through her system. It could improve with time though. She has lost a little weight since last time but not much, and she had a blockage last time so she could have weighed more because of that.
But as the vet was cleaning the dog-bite wound, just irrigating it with some antiseptic, two arteries burst and blood started pouring straight up out of Monroe, up onto the walls. It was an immediate emergency and the arteries were likely damaged from the dog bite. If they hadn’t burst there they could have burst at any time and she would have died at home. The surgeon was able to suture them, but they were definitely weak. Monroe spent the rest of the day at the vet to see if she remained stable. She lost a fair amount of blood and that isn’t good. But she perked up at the end of the day and so she was allowed to come home.
On the good side, Monroe has shown she can stand up and put weight on both feet. This is pretty remarkable considering her fractured pelvis. She is also fairly stable and we’re able to keep her very comfortable with medicine. So while it’s hard to say if she can fully recover yet, as long as she is comfortable, we will give her every chance to recover. If she starts to be in too much pain or too agitated, we won’t want her to suffer. But for now, even with today’s big scare, she is content and comfortable, and she really enjoys getting to see her buddy Cowboy.
So that’s the scary update for today. We don’t like seeing blood shooting up out of our rescues. We came home and took a nap.
If you’d like to donate to Monroe or Danny’s vet care, you can read about how to make a contribution here.
As always, thanks and honks and quacks and clucks.
Talking with Cowboy
Cowboy is a good talker. Today we talked for a few minutes and then I came in and played the tape of us talking for Monroe. Monroe listened to every second and talked right back to him, so I let her go outside for a bit and visit.
Here’s video of me talking with Cowboy.
He is a really cute guy, and a good conversationalist.
Monroe is holding her own today after a full day at the vet yesterday. Her whole system was blocked off, so they had to put her under brief anesthesia and clean out her digestive tract basically. Monroe needs to show she can poop on her own and then she can be considered “on the mend.” Both Monroe and Danny go back to the vet again this Saturday for yet another re-check to ensure they are still both on the path to recovery.
Thanks and quacks and honks and clucks,
Tiff & the flock
Wrangling the Cowboy
Well well well… look who we have here!
The Cowboy has been wrangled! This is Monroe’s mate who was dumped at the park with her. Today, the volunteer from the Seattle Animal Shelter who has been trying to help him for a week finally caught him. The park was really crowded with people and dogs and kids, and Cowboy was jonesing for some Cheerios. So he walked into the parking lot with the volunteer to eat some, and the volunteer was able to grab him. Frankly I was pretty shocked, as I thought it was going to take an army and a boat to get him. She has been visiting him a lot, so I bet he was glad to see her, especially with so many strange people and dogs around. He was probably glad to see Cheerios, too.
We placed Cowboy in a pen and brought Monroe out to see him for a bit. I’m really glad we did, because the volunteer noticed that Monroe has a prolapse! Poor Monroe just can’t catch a break! I hadn’t noticed it because I’m always carrying Monroe facing front. It could also be a new development, but I don’t think so. I wish the vet or I had noticed it earlier, because it has probably been hurting quite a bit, in addition to the pain of her broken pelvis. I’m not able to press it back inside, because she’s got a lot of swelling and some hard urates blocking her inside. It’s not great, but I’m hoping the antibiotics she’s already on will help until we can get her back to the vet on Tuesday. And thankfully, she is comfortable with new pain medication 3-times a day.
A very special thanks to Monroe and Cowboy’s savior, the volunteer who caught Cowboy. If she hadn’t kept such a close eye on them, they would be even worse off than they already are. Monroe is resting comfortably in the safety of our house, and Cowboy is snoozing outside in a predator-proof pen. They know they’re close to each other now, and we’ll let Monroe go see Cowboy again tomorrow for a bit as well.
In other news, Lester and Danny girl got to play outside for a while today. They had fun swimming in the pond, and then walked around and preened before taking a nap under Lester’s favorite shrubbery.
Here is a little video of them. As you can see, Danny is still weak and feeling the effects of metal toxicity. But she wasn’t even moving a week ago, so this is major progress. Lester is walking like a champ after being here a year. He could not sit when he arrived because his right leg was frozen in a sticking-out position. It’s amazing how well he does now.
That’s it for tonight. Please send good thoughts for poor Monroe. She is still very much in the woods, so I hope she can recover. Danny will take any good thoughts you have, too.
Thanks and quacks and honks,
Tiff & the flock
Monroe and Danny Girl Update
Both Monroe the goose and Danny the duck went to the vet today for re-checks. And as promised, we are sharing a fundraising goal to help cover the cost of their mounting veterinary bills. The total so far is… don’t faint… $911.50. Oops! Now it’s up to $1,306. I should note, we never take in any rescue we cannot afford to care for ourselves. But many people have grown attached to these two already and would like to donate. We can understand that, so to make a donation via paypal, visit our donation page or click the “donate” link on the left navigation.
Now on to the updates.
Danny did well at the vet’s office. She has really come a long way in just a week. Several people at the vet’s office told us they were surprised she was alive. They really thought, as I did, that I was bringing her home to die.
Unfortunately she still has metal inside her. It looks like one big piece, but it is possibly a bunch of little things all close together in her gizzard. Whatever it is, it’s made out of lead. Her blood test showed a lead level over 10x normal. Metal toxicity leads to neurological damage which is why Danny can’t walk well. But she also had a serious infection, which has greatly improved over the last week, taking her from a dying duck to an energetic little kid. She stumbles around from the effects of the metal, but she is greatly improved.
The vet wants to avoid surgery if at all possible, so we are continuing with EDTA chelation medication to bind the metals and remove them from her blood, as well as antibiotics. We also added something else that may help guide the lead OUT of her gizzard, so we’ll go back in another week and see if any of it is gone. She seems pretty stable and pretty happy to me right now. This is great news. She may still need surgery but that’s a last resort.
Monroe is having a more difficult time. Her dog bite wound is both infected and necrotic. That’s normal, but it’s so gross that I didn’t want to post a photo here. If you want to see it, here is the wound. Click at your own risk. The vet cleaned the deep wound, which was the point of today’s visit, and also gave us new pain medication for her. Unfortunately, the infection or the dog bite or the broken pelvis have also affected or punctured Monroe’s air sacs. All told, it’s not great. The vets are more hopeful than I am though. This is a wound that can heal. The broken pelvis is broken in a “good” place and aligned fairly well so that it could heal. The air sacs could heal with rest and antibiotics. Monroe is fairly comfortable with the new pain medication, so she will have a few more days to turn the corner and start to improve. Her recovery is really up to her now, and it could go either way. As long as she is fairly comfortable, I will give her time. But if she starts looking like she is suffering we will need to say goodbye.
Monroe still has a mate, or at least a buddy, who was dumped at the park along with her. Several of us tried to lure him to the shore and catch him for almost 4-hours on Thursday. We’ve named him “Cowboy.” Cowboy is too smart for our silly luring ways and will not fall for our Cheerio tricks. But Cowboy is in danger of dog attacks or worse at the park, just like Monroe, and if we can catch him, he and Monroe (if she recovers) can both go to a forever sanctuary together. So we may be planning a group effort to lasso the Cowboy soon. Stay tuned for news on that. You may think you have tips on catching Cowboy that we haven’t heard, but I’ll bet we’ve tried them. Cowboy is a flighted, uninjured, skittish goose on 8 open ponds with other geese and ducks. It’s going to take a group effort. And a boat. Stay tuned.
That’s just about all the update I can handle for one day. We wish everyone a very happy new year, and a very special thanks for all of your thoughtful support over this past year.
Quacks and clucks (and heps and honks),
Tiff and the flock
Introducing…
New ducky, the one who came to us nearly dead from infection and metal toxicity, is feeling much better. She’s not out of the woods yet, because she needs serious surgery to remove the metal she swallowed, but she is about 70% better than when she first arrived, which is great.
And, she chose a name!
New girl chose the name “Danny.” I know it’s kind of a boy’s name, but it’s what fits. Tonight she had her first swim since arriving here. She finally felt good-enough to splash in the tub and she loved it. She and Lester are sharing a playpen now and getting along great. Lester likes the company.
Here are two little videos of their tub time tonight.
So please join me in welcoming Danny. She will be here at least until she has recovered from surgery, which could be another week away. Once she is recovered, we will try (as we always do) to see if she is quiet-enough for our neighborhood. If she isn’t (which is usually the case with female ducks) we will begin looking for a forever home for her.
In other news, Monroe the goose isn’t doing great, but is hanging in there. She’s not eating well yet. She did finally eat a bunch of romaine lettuce tonight, so that’s hopeful. But she is not liking the duck food, peas, corn, tomatoes, cheerios or cat kibble. Not even bread. I don’t know what she ate for the past month at the park she was dumped at, but it’s not on the menu here.
She is very sweet and chats with me all the time, but she also seems very sad. I am sure she misses her mate who is still at the park. We are trying to catch her mate but it may take a while. We hope to reunite them here until Monroe can hopefully recover from her broken pelvis and dog bite, then we will find a sanctuary to take them in (I hope). I heard before I took in Monroe that a sanctuary was already lined up, but now I’m not so sure. I guess that’s the kind of thing that makes life interesting, right?
Stay tuned, and thanks for all the good thoughts. After Friday’s re-check at the vet for both new rescues, we’ll post a fundraiser to help cover the costs of their treatment for anyone who wants to help out.
Quacks, clucks and honks,
Tiff & the flock
Another New Arrival
First off, duck who-does-not-have-a-name-yet is still doing well and making gradual improvements. And we’re getting close on a name. Sometimes it takes a while. She will go to the vet on Friday for a re-check and may need another week before surgery. We’ll see.
But in other news, another new kid arrived today. This one is a goose.
Meet Monroe. Monroe is a goose, who along with her mate, were dumped at Magnuson Park a few weeks ago. They were dumped at a federally-protected wildlife wetlands area, which is no place for two domestic geese. It’s also no place for dogs to be off leash, but people do it.
Monroe was attacked by a dog two days ago (according to passers-by) and today was not moving at all.
Two people from the animal shelter and the parks department called a wildlife rescue place which called me, and I drove over to help catch Monroe. It turned out it wasn’t very hard as the goose doesn’t move at all. We just picked her up and placed her in a carrier.
Unfortunately we were not able to catch her mate yet. The mate is not injured and was very wary of getting too close. We’re hoping he’ll come close to a parks department guy he likes within the next week so we can grab him and reunite the geese.
Monroe weighs 3.34kg or 7.6lbs. To put that in perspective, O’Malley weighs about 13lbs and Toro roo weighs 17lbs. So the goose is pretty small for a goose. That is part of why we think she’s female.
The dog bite to Monroe the goose crushed the bone in her pelvis, but it’s in an area that might be able to heal. It’s to the tail end of her, past her legs, so it’s possible that staying immobile, taking antibiotics and pain/anti-inflammatories will help the pelvis heal on its own.
Here’s another look. I’ve tried to highlight the broken bone area. It’s possible that a pin could be placed in there to better set the bone, but because it’s also an infected dog bite and it’s down past the legs, the vet would like to wait and see how she does first.
So Monroe hung out at the vet’s office for a bit while I ran to a pharmacy to get new medication for the duck and got a space set up at home for the new new arrival.
Now Monroe is set up in a carrier on my dining room table near the rest of the indoor crew. She isn’t eating or drinking yet, so that’s not a great sign. But she has medication, so hopefully after a good night’s sleep she’ll perk up and start feeling a little better. We hope so.
Good night to Monroe and her funny chin mole. If she does okay the next few days, she’ll return to the vet for a re-check on the same day and time that we take in the duck-who-shall-soon-choose-a-name.
That’s it from here for tonight.
Quacks and clucks, and honks,
Tiff & the flock
P.S. A note about Magnuson Park and the Wetlands: Those wetlands are federally-protected areas meant to help biodiversity and help naturally clean the water system. They are not a dumping ground for domestic waterfowl, and certainly not a playground for toddlers or an off-leash area for dogs. There is an off-leash area mere YARDS from the wetlands, yet people let their dogs run wild through the delicate wetlands. It’s such a disrespectful misuse of the area that I can no longer visit it because it makes me sad and furious to watch self-involved, entitled people tramp all over the place and let their toddlers throw rocks at birds and their dogs chase the birds. Please have some respect and consideration for wildlife and parks.
