I wish I had more pics of the above bird. This pigeon came in right after a windy storm. He came in seizuring--I assumed the wind threw him against a building, causing head trauma. We quickly gave medication to to stop the seizures and placed an IV catheter to administer fluids that would draw fluid (and therefore pressure) off the brain. Rarely do we get a patient in so soon after a traumatic incident (so rarely does this treatment work) but in this case, the pigeon was stable by the evening and ready to be released the next day!! yay!!
The above video is a southern flying squirrel. The finders found it in their yard and don't know how it got hurt. You're right--looks like some sort of spinal trauma. and that's what the radiographs (below) revealed. The sharp angle in the spine is a dislocation of the vertebrae:( this patient had to be euthanized.
The video below is a juvenile ring billed gull. He came in when we had a vet student working with us. He had a fracture, which healed well. After that, he refused to fly. The student ran every test in the book, which all came back normal. The student left, so I repeated the tests, and still there were all normal. Turns out, this was just a stubborn gull, who refused to fly for us! He was perfectly healthy:) so we started "creancing" him (see video) where you essentially have him on a rope and get him to fly for exercise. After a few weeks of this, he was released just in time for migration:)
