Downy Woodpecker.... part 2

After my post from yesterday, Downy Woodpecker, I just had to create a part 2!!

There was a lot of activity going on outside that immediately caught my attention.... I heard the sounds of distress from a little bird, but could not locate it immediately.  Then, I found him....

Baby male Downy Woodpecker

He managed to get himself lodged between two branches and could not get himself out....

I was able to gently lift him up with my fingers and he was able to re-position himself on the branch....I took a few photos and then he flew to a nearby tree.

This story doesn't end here!!  It wasn't until I put my photos on the computer that I noticed in one of the pictures that his left eye was closed.  It was like that in all of the photos.  (very visible in the first photo posted above and slightly in the one below) I then realized that something was wrong with his little eye.  Was it poked by a tree branch or a siblings beak in the nest?  Or could it be a birth defect?  I felt so bad because he was now gone from the tree where I initially helped him get ''unstuck''.  Then a few hours later.....

....There he was hanging onto the post above while his mother was feeding below!! I snapped this photo, then set my camera down and proceeded to walk closer to the baby to see if I could get a closer look at his eye!!  The mother flew to a nearby tree, and the baby didn't move.... I slowly raised my hand closer towards him and he still didn't move.  He made it very easy by allowing me to put him in my hand. (Maybe he remembered me helping him from earlier in the day.... )

Once he was comfortable in my hand, I took him into the house and began to take an even closer look.  Our two house cats, Philly and Misty and our Border Collie, Skye are getting used to our feathered friends coming into the house these days.  This was the second bird that needed help in less than a month!! Here is our Hummingbird Rescue !!  To make a long story short, I got out my homeopathy kit and wet a soft cloth with some colloidal silver and gently held it over his eye.  I massaged the area and in a few minutes, his eye began to open up!!!! I was excited and I am certain he was too!!  I put a drop or two of colloidal silver in some water and let him drink it.  Colloidal silver helped in this situation as I was able to clean the area and prevent possible infection in the eye.

His eye is open now and all cleaned up!!

Once confident that his eye was looking better, I gave him a little snack of peanut butter and another drink of water before releasing him outside with his family.  I put him back on the bird feeder and he looked around for a moment and then flew to this stump....

Baby (left) and Father re-united!!

 

How precious is this!!  The father feeding the baby moments after he was in my hand!!

I came to notice that there are at least 3 babies being taken care of by mom and dad... Two boys and a girl!! Here (see photo below) is the female baby now about a week older from this photo !!

Glad to see another happy ending and hopefully they all live long productive lives!! :-)

Homeopathy for my Pekin Duck!!

Well a few weeks ago, our baby Pekin duck who would be about 11 weeks old at the time, was all of a sudden limping around.  We came to the conclusion that he stepped on a sharp object and punctured the bottom of his foot.  After a day or so, he wasn't walking on it and only layed in one spot and did not want to go in the water and swim with the rest of his friends :-(

Once we determined that there were no broken bones, we took him up to the barn and made a cozy little place for him to rest and after 24 hours, he was no better.  And it seemed like infection was setting in.  I tried some of my home remedies on him which started that evening:

St John's Wort Oil which would help him with any inflammation and infection.

(Arnica 30c) for the pain.

(Silicea 6c) This homeopathic remedy is used to extract any foreign object that may be inside his foot causing infection.

(Colloidal Silver) An ounce of colloidal silver in his drinking water.  Colloidal silver fights off infection, cleans wounds and helps build up the immune system, to name a few.

(Epsom Salts) One cup of epsom salts in tub of warm water. Soaked foot for one hour two times a day!

I phoned our vet, who is an hour drive away and asked her if the time came and the homeopathic treatments were not working, could we take our Pekin duck to see her.  She agreed!! You see, the closest avian vet is 7 hours away~~and we didn't want to traumatize our poor little Pekin anymore than he was.  Our vet said that she fixed a broken wing on a bird once, but never worked on a duck!!  We made an appointment for the vet the next day. We needed to create a name for the duck on file with the vet, so we called him "Peekee"

The next morning, after Peekee's epson salt bath, we set him down on the patio deck for a moment until we organized his little makeshift fort.  We used a little swimming pool filled with soft hay and a white sheet over his head for his roof to block the hot summer sun on him. We suddenly heard his little feet going pitter patter pitter patter and he was making his way to the other end of the deck!!!! It was an amazing sight to see.. He then waddled all the way to the other end, with no problem at all.. It was a miracle to see him start walking again.  He was still limping, but not nearly like he was before.  We called the vet and talked about how he was walking again.  We came to the conclusion that the homeopathy was working and we would continue with it.  We cancelled the appointment with the vet and we continued with the remedies on hand.  We massaged the foot with St John's Wort Oil twice a day for the next week and put colloidal silver in his drinking water.  We put him back down in the pond with the rest of his friends the next day and you could see that he was very happy!

Today, Peekee is swimming with his friends and walking around the grass and just having fun being a duck!! It is hard to pick him out of the group now.  He is keeping up with them as if nothing was even wrong with him!! We were thankful that it worked out for him and we will always make sure we have the above noted remedies on hand!

If you would like to know how we got these beautiful ducks, here is the wonderful story