Busy, Busy

It seems like this week is flying by! One more day and its the weekend! 

We've been getting a lot of Raptors at the Center lately and several species that we don't get too often.  We currently have 3, yes THREE, Sharp-shinned Hawks.  I think thats the total number we've had in any given year!  I'm hoping to release the first one, that we got in the beginning of November, next week.  The 2 baby Barn Owls are growing like weeds.  They've almost doubled in weight! 

An Adult Barn Owl came in yesterday from Winston County with barbed wire still entangled.  I wish I had snapped a picture of it. Its so very interesting to see the progression of these injuries from absolutely horrific to perfect. Sometimes these birds are just amazing in their healing abilities.  It looked like he/she flew right onto the wire and the skin on its chest got twisted and wrapped around the wire.  I cleaned it as best as I could and immediately sent it to the vet.  Here's a picture I took of the wound today.  Daily cleaning of the wound and putting trypsyme on it to help sluff off the dead tissue and regenerate new tissue.  The wound was too large to close, but should heal with daily treatment.

(kinda graphic...you may want to skip if you have a weak stomach)

((and I'll spare you the extracloseup shot))

 The brick red part is the dead tissue that will eventually come off and the new tissue will granulate in.  The lower part of the dead tissue is where the wire was still wrapped around the barbed wire.  I don't think I've seen this kind of injury from barbed wire, they usually have tissue damage to their wings and petagium (wing web).  I'm excited to see how this progresses and show it in photographs.

Miss Kitty on top, Chui (leopard in Swahili) is the little calico and the black-and-white one is temporarily Eastwood - the cat with no name.

Don't let the cuteness fool you...they are holy terrors. Promise.