Fish in a blender! lol Over the last two days we've taken in three double-crested cormorants. Two immature and one mature. All three are severely emaciated although only one has an injury. It's injury is that it is walking on one of its foots turned upside down. Or rather the foot is curled under and it is walking using the top of that foot. A new volunteer today asked me what happened to make the bird do this with its foot. My response was I didn't know. The bird doesn't want to talk about it! Ha ha ha -- classic answer!
The bird is very weak so we actually waited a day to see if it would survive it's first 24-hours before splinting it's foot in the correct position. Without a splint on the foot it doesn't take long for the skin on the top of the foot -- which it is walking on -- to wear through. On this part of the foot there is no muscle under the skin so when the skin is gone the tendons and nerves would be exposed. Once the tendons and nerves come in contact with a surface, such as the ground, they are quickly destroyed. If the bird's foot was to get to this stage it would eventually lose the foot and that would be the kiss of death for a cormie. Cormies swim underwater and need both feet to do this successfully so that they can swim swiftly to catch tasty fish!
The cause for the state of emaciation (starvation) that these birds are facing was explained in a previous post on August 6th entitled "A pretty quiet week". The protocol is to warm the bird's body up to at least 106 degrees Fahrenheit, rehydrate their cells to kick-start their internal systems and then offer them food. The first 24-hours they are gavaged fluids. To gavage a bird you first warm up their fluids between a range of 100 and 110 degrees. Then you suck the fluid up into a syringe put a tube on the end of the syringe and slide the tube down the bird's throat dispensing the liquids directly into their stomach. Additional sterile fluids can be injected under their skin. On Day Two the birds are tubed with plain fluids in the morning followed by 3-4 additional gavages of fish soup.
Hence the title! Fish, either capelin or thread herring, are put in a blender. About 8-12. Then fluids are added and away we go. We blend the heck out of it...on liquify, of course...then strain it through a food strainer -- we call this tool a pureer. The pureer separates the liquid and meaty flesh from the fish scales and bones. Though scales don't have much nutrition, the bones might add calcium, but they also tend to clog the tubes attached to the gavage syringes. And believe me, when this happens and the whole things explodes on you, your clothes and the bird your first instinct is to laugh! Then you realize you're going home really smelling like fish today! Before we gavage the bird the fish soup we add liquid vitamins. The soup can be warmed up, but only in tiny increments of 10 seconds in the microwave. It doesn't take long to "cook" fish soup! If it can't be served at the ideal temperature then so be it, but it should at least not be cold. The bird would have to spend valuable energy warming up the nutrients just injected into its stomach.
I learned years ago (16 of them!) that if an emaciated cormorant is going to be saved (and I think their chances are 50/50) then they will live past three days. If they do well on Day One with fluids, Days Two and Three with fish soup then hopefully they'll be much more perkier and ready for some small easy to digest fish, such as smelt, on Day Four. Sometimes though we jump right to tiny pilchards. A tad harder for them to digest, but guess what? Smelt comes from the Great Lakes and pilchards are found locally. Which would you eat? A green garden cucumber or a sea cucumber?!?! We tend to opt for the more familiar which, in the case of a bird that almost starved, could be a matter of life or death. If the bird recognizes the food it is offer (and by the way, smelt float, and upside down at that, while pilchards sink on their side) it not only eats but often has a look on its face like "Yeah, finally...a decent meal in this place!" 'Til next time!
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