This information is  on a prairie falcon that  appeared to be normal and very
healthy  in the  beginning but during  flying to the  fist the bird  would only  come
3 to 5  times and would  stop responding.  Afterwords she stopped eating all together
and was taken to the avian vet.  Here is the story:

	After going  over everything  with the  avain vet  he took  her back for some
anesthesia because he wanted to  do a fecal culture from her cloaca,  get some  blood
for pathology and give  her a physical.  After  getting the blood drawn  he began the
physical exam.  Everything  was fine and her oral,  nasal cavity and  eyes were fine.
Then the bad  stuff was found.  Her left  ear is fine but somehow, before  I captured
her she obtained  an injury to her right  ear.  There is a nasty  scab inside  it and
the bone is exposed  and it is also  swollen!!! Now the worse part of the exam.  Upon
examination of her crop  he found some type  of tumor, abcess or fibroid  mass inside
her crop that  is roughly the  size of a  ping-pong ball.  This  would definately  be
the cause of her  not eating and not being able  to swallow.  Other than an  educated 
guess my avian vet  has no idea what  this "mass" is but  said it has been  there for
quite some time and  it probably stemmed from  an injury she received before I caught
her; possibly an  injury received from  a puncture from  quarry that kicked  her  and
punctured her crop with it's claw. It is very feasible that she obtained this and the
ear injury from the same battle from capturing prey.  He will have the pathology back
tomorrow and I have a follow up appointment with him next Friday.  The mass will have
to be removed and  we are fearfull because of  the size that it has infested into the
crop lining and once removed,  he may have to seal  the crop.  If this happens  it is
likely that I will put  her into an educational  program or breeding program  because
I'm not sure  how she will  be as a  falconry bird.  I  will speak to  some top avian
specialists/falconers in the  USA reguarding this  and get their feelings  on how she
will do as a falconry bird vs. going into a breeding/educational program.  Here is  a
pic of the fibrous mass inside her crop:


Close-up of the growth inside a praire falcons crop.



UPDATE:	February 9, 2007

	Everything went well today.  I took Sugar back to my avian vet but he decided
	against surgery since  the antibiotics I'm giving her  seem to be helping and
	the scraping of the feeding tube against the mass is making it break off into
	chunks that she is regurgitating each time I try and tube feed her.  This has
	made it  smaller but he did excise some  of it via her mouth and was able  to
	get enough out to where I am able to get a rubber feeding tube/catheter  past
	the proventuculous in order to tube feed her better.  I will be trying to get
	20cc into her QID.  My avian vet also looked at the scraping of the mass
	under the microscope looking for Trichomoniasis gallinae (Frounce) but found
	no organisms.  He presumes this is not frounce but still does not know what
	this fibrous mass is.  She will remain on the following medications:




MEDICATION STRENGTH DIRECTIONS


Metronidazole Oral Suspension 0.30ml BID X 7 days.


Carnidazole 10 mg tablets 1 tablet OID 3 days.


Baytril Oral Suspension 0.60ml BID X 10 days.







Eddie B. Horvath


Copyright 1996-2007 Eddie B. Horvath