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Urgent Injured canary toe

FluffyFeet

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Yesterday we came home to find that our canary had wrapped string tightly around his toe and leg. We immediately removed the string. His toe was clearly injured, but he was still able to walk and fly. We decided to monitor him to see the extent of the injury.

Over yesterday and today his leg and toe started doing better. The toe was clearly uncomfortable but he was able to perch normally again and his leg did not seem to bother him. Both his toe and leg were looking much better than the day before when I inspected them.

We left to run a short errand and when we came back he had been picking at his toe. He had ripped most of the skin off the tip of it and it was bleeding. We quickly applied bird safe styptic powder to stop the bleeding and called our emergency veterinarian. The vet said that their avian vet was out, and that the nearest vet that might be able to treat him is multiple hours away, but they were not sure that they would be there either.

Is there anything we can do to prevent him from further injuring his toe? We thought maybe bandaging it but he is so small and we are not sure what we could use. The toe with the problem is the long middle one.
 

Zara

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finchly

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You can clean it with water and apply (human) triple antibiotic. Yes you can wrap it with, I don’t know the proper term - medical tape ? and gauze. He may continue to pick because it hurts. A vet could give you an antibiotic and pain med so it didn’t hurt so much.
Fortunately this will probably resolve in a few days.
Unfortunately, sometimes they pick so much they lose the toe.
 

FluffyFeet

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1/20/20
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Over the past few days things have gotten worse.
He pulls off anything we try to wrap it with and just keeps picking at it.
We did a telemed appointment with an avian vet. We sent them pictures of the toe and they prescribed antibiotics. They said they wanted to prescribe pain meds but could not find a proper dose due to how small he is.

Today I discovered him picking at a previously un-injured toe. I am very concerned because I am not sure how to stop him. I am worried he is going end up losing two toes due to this, or possibly something worse if I can't stop him from picking at it.

I found the thread about making him a collar but I don't think it will work since he is so small, and the area that we need to stop him from picking at he would still be able to reach.
 
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