DISABLED BIRDS

Caring For Disabled Birds

Their comfort and safety is my priority

Leggs, a senior cockatiel born with no legs. All photos are the author’s.

Leggs has no legs, just perfectly formed feet protruding from her body. She came to live with us when her owner died. I have no information as to her age and prior accommodations. I do know what crippled birds need in the way of comfort and that is padded shelves to rest on and food dishes they can easily reach.

All of my crippled birds could fly and some could balance on one leg to eat. Like all birds, they used their beaks, feet, and wings to navigate inside and outside the flight cage. Leggs is the only crippled bird remaining in my flock; the others dying in their senior years.

Maxie uses her feet and beak to move around the flight cage.

Although the flight cage door is always open during the day, Leggs, as a younger bird, stayed within its confines, flying from padded shelf to padded shelf or climbing the wires to food dishes. I never knew where she would be when I entered the flight cage until I saw her pretty head poking up from a dish.

Not nowadays. She stays put. Aging no longer gives her wings lift power; she glides to the floor and doesn’t have the strength or energy to use her beak and legs to climb back to her favorite…