by Pajarita » Tue May 12, 2020 11:04 am
Michael's advice is right on the money but I would think that first you need to determine exactly what is causing the inflammation on her joint because the only thing I can think of is trauma. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a fracture (could be hairline and not really that noticeable in XRay -was one taken at the vet?) because, in my personal experience, soft tissue damage in wings easily ends up being permanent even after healing. Wings are VERY delicate and a single torn tendon or atrophied muscle would render a bird flightless. The other problem with macaws is that you need 30 ft of distance in a straight line for them to actually fly (shorter distances are not real flight, they are more like a skip with an added impulse from the wings) and because this represents a very large room -something most people do not have, the greatest majority of them are raised without any real flight. A bird that does not fly is a bird that has not only atrophied muscles and shrunken tendons in the wings but also weak chest and abdomen muscles and a semi-atrophied respiratory system. And this is why the exercises that Michael shows are so very important! BUT you cannot exercise her if there is still inflammation so you will need to get the OK from the vet before you start any rehabilitation with her.
In the meantime, do make sure her claws are not cut too short or too blunt (this will make her feel insecure because she would not be able to 'grab' well) and that when she perches on your arm you hold it next to your chest (meaning, the upper arm -from shoulder to elbow- should be held against your body and the forearm -from elbow to wrist- should be held at a perfect straight angle to the upper arm and very close to your torso, this will give it more stability -less 'bounce'). You might have already figured this out but I said it anyway because I have noticed that most people who have no experience with large birds hold their arms out and away from their bodies. But, in my personal experience, when birds are afraid of 'unstable' perches is because they never flew. Flighted birds are not worried at all about instability, bounce, being upside down, hanging from one single claw or anything because they know they will not 'fall' - if they lose their hold, they just glide or fly down.
PS One more thing (I had to come back because there was something you said that kept on bothering me), you say that you are putting the anti-inflammatory in her food? That sounds VERY strange to me because all the anti-inflammatories I know that are used in birds need to be extremely precise in the dosage and are always given in the beak at exact times (usually twice a day - every 12 hours) and at a dosage that the vet calculates exactly based on the bird's weight. I SERIOUSLY doubt that an anti-inflammatory put in the food would work because these are all meds that cannot be overdosed so, by necessity, the dosage the vet gave you to put in the food would have to be very low as you can't really pre-determine the amount of food the bird will eat or that it will be done every 12 hours. You can give antibiotics in the food and you can give certain herbals like tonics and cleanser but anti-inflammatories? I've never heard of that before...