HELP!, their feet are going to fall off

[crazyparrot]

OK, I seriously need some help. My first time breeding IRN, and when I ordered the bands the chart shows 9, 9.5 & 10 Well I chose 9.5 seeing as my breeder's legs seem rather skinny. I usually handle babies on a regular basis, and I was told to leave the babies alone or the parents might kill them since they're not used to me yet. Well I banded the babies a week or so ago and I decided to check on them now to see if they're getting any feathers yet. While looking at the baby I took out I noticed it's foot was swollen. Further examination showed the leg & foot are completely swollen and the band is cutting into the leg. This is on 3 out of the 4 babies, luckily the band fell off the fourth one's foot because it was very small.
Anyway, the bands are stainless steel. I put cortizone cream on the feet & legs to reduce the swelling some, but does anyone know how to remove a stainless steel band? I would've gladly ordered aluminum, but they don't have it in the larger sizes so I had to get the SS.

Any help would be very much appreciated, but please understand, here there are only 2 vets that will deal with birds and it's a minimum of $100 just to see them, if I were to ask them to remove the bands off the 3 legs, it would probably run me close to $200 per bird, and I don't want to sound cruel or anything, but I will only get about $100 for each of these babies when they're weaned.

Would it be better to just leave it and hope their legs shrink in thickness like their parents' as they get older, try to cut the band, or cut the leg and cauterize it to reduce the chance of losing the babies? I need some professional advice

FAH?

[Fah]

Unfortunately, the forums have been down for a few days, only just saw this sorry.

First off, on a medical point of view I dont see cutting the foot off being cheaper than the vet costs heh, if you plan on doing this yourself, you surely have the ability and the equipment to remove the bands yourself?

Cutting off circulation to a foot is not like docking a dogs tail, you will get serious blood infections on a good chance... all those pigeons you see with one foot... imagine 1 in 4 surviving that kind of ordeal, not that they all do.

I wouldnt mind knowing who or where you ordered them from? So I can see the sizing etc.

I have never once heard of an IRN killing their young like some of the cockatoo's or other species etc, infact, they are one of the most accessible and easy birds to breed with and experience all aspects of nesting with.

If the feet are swollen... how hard was it to put them on originally? They should have just slipped over the toes and feet without a worry, even a little too much pressure on developing feet could cause damage so if it was a chore to get them on, you may have caused the swelling?

In the end, the legs wont shrink down in all likeyhood.

Cutting the leg and doing a backyard surgery job could very well be disasterous, not to mention the sheer inhumane pain you will be causing the animal...

If you are not confident in removing the bands yourself, you dont have much choice when it comes to dealing with this if you wont go see someone who can help.

Ending word, I fail to see how a chart could say its fine for an IRN yet have the bands obviously too small... if you did everything right, and their charts and selling guidelines match, I woud be irate and on the phone, telling everyone of this problem you have experienced.

[crazyparrot]

I noticed the forum was down, after I posted the problem, a good friend of mine, who has been breeding cockatiels for god knows how long, told me to get some cortisone cream and massage it onto the foot. Well I did that (cortaid with aloe) every 6 hours or so for 2 days and then he said to stop wit the cortisone because of some side effect it could cause and start using neosporin. I'm happy to say that the bands are now rather loose and I think they'll be ok. I can wiggle the bands and they don't rub on the skin. My friend, Rick, said that the feet may have gotten an infection from the feces on the bottom of the nest box. The bands were easy to put on, in fact the only baby who doesn't have a band is because it fell off. The babies were 10-14 days when I banded them. I get my bands from L&M leg bands and have never had a problem before. The 9.5 band I used is supposedly 7.16mm inner diameter. Their chert says you can use 9, 9.5 or 10 and I figured I'd go woth the middle size so it wouldn't be too small or too large.

I do have another question, now that I'm hand feeding them, they seem very inquisitive, seem to like being held, petted and 2 of them will even walk t the other end of the tank to see me, but they don't seem to want to eat. Cockatiels, parakeets and conures all usually want to take my hand off when it comes time for hand feeding (after a day of getting used to the syringe), but it's been a few days now and they don't seem to want the food. I do gavage (crop) feeding, but one baby struggles so much , he/she even throws food back at me. I'll be getting my new tubes in tomorrow hopefully which will be safer than the curved syringes I'm using, but are they naturally this problematic? And one more thing...why don't they get fluff? All other birds I raise hatch with fluff, and these guys are bald. Even now at over 3 weeks one baby still has no feathers to speak of (everyone else's are just coming in)

[yazzie]

Hi i am sorry to hear of your problems. I am also new to the world of irn, I think you are going to loose your babies if you are not careful. Have you tried feeding using spoon with bent up sides, as i don't think a unfamiliar object put in my mouth would be much fun ( give it a try). YOU should google some pictures of irn as i have found some and they do have down on them. I know it is expensive but i would say your only option is to take them all to the vet. I am also assuming that if you are hand feeding the babies are going to be pets in which case i do not think i would worry about putting bands on their legs, i only band if i am going to show a bird or for breeding purposes. Are you able to post some photos of the babies?

[crazyparrot]

This is 4 IRN babies, all from the same clutch...notice how the one is absolutely bald and one cockatiel about the same age.

I have done gavage feeding on parakeets from day one (normal tiny parakeets) up to conures and even doves, chickens & pigeons

[yazzie]

That is very odd are they feeding better now

[crazyparrot]

There was one that never really gave me a problem, now there is one that still throws the food back at me. I use a curved syringe, and with everybody else, I can calmly slide it dwn the throat so we avoid any in the air tube (can't remember the word for breathing food). Hopefully though, my rubber catheters will be here today and I can shove it all the way down without fear of hurting his throat...BTW, yes, they're still that naked

[yazzie]

Hope things go ok keep us posted