From The Raptor Center
These “preys-eye” views of a great horned owl’s foot belong to a recent patient who arrived at TRC’s raptor hospital after being found caught in a fox trap. The photos were taken after a week in TRC’s care to assess her perching and toe function.
An owl’s foot is perfectly designed for hunting, with four powerful toes equipped with sharp, curved talons. When perched, two toes point forward, and two point backward. One of the rear toes is permanently fixed to the rear, but the other is flexible and can either be positioned in front for stability or to the rear, for an exceptionally strong grip of their prey…
When this owl was admitted to TRC on July 10, veterinary staff noted that she had abrasions and punctures on the rear fixed toe of her right foot from the trap. They determined that there was also tendon injury on this great horned owl’s toe, because she was not able to extend it normally. TRC clinic staff placed a custom-fit splint on the toe to support it. While the tendon healed, the owl was provided pain medications and cage rest. They changed the foot bandage and splint twice weekly, while monitoring the wounds on the toe.
After three weeks, when TRC clinic staff removed the splint, the owl was using the toe well and perching normally. After a few flight tests, she was determined to be ready for release and returned to the skies on August 22, healed and once again ready to hunt.
Wonderful picture!
I’m glad you liked it! I thought it was a fun play with angles.
I love the explanation too. I’ve always imagined bird of prey gripping with the fixed toe back and three other upfront. I would have thought at least some could have two back, two front. That is very interesting.
My understanding is that by attacking with the toes in an X pattern does 2 important things.
Firstly, it doubles the area of what it can actually grab. The owl is moving and often the prey is also. Having 2 downward toes doubles the potential gripping surface if the feet strike off-center. Miss with the one (fixed!) toe, and it doesn’t get a meal. By having the second moveable toe downward, now there is a bigger area that can size the target, and that toe can move in or out to maximize that grabbing area. Picture catching something with a baseball glove vs kitchen tongs.
Secondly, once that prey is grabbed, that swinging toe can get itself into a much better position than it may have initially struck. By being in that X arrangement grip is coming from 4 directions onto the prey instead of 2 or 3. It increases how secure the prey is held until the owl can dispatch it and how evenly that pressure is applied.
Poor owl! Do you know what pain medication is used?
I don’t recall hearing much talk at work about what commonly gets used on our patients, so I did some quick looking and saw that there looks to be quite a variety of things used. There were even discussions about how different avian species respond differently to the same medicines, so there is quite a bit of study and debate on what works best for whom in which cases.
Most all of the articles I looked at mentioned both opioid and NSAIDs. I don’t know anything about medications, so this may be more helpful to others than myself. This summary seemed to touch on the most commonly used ones:
Opioids Opioid analgesia is arguably one of the most used pain management techniques in practice. Opioids act on the kappa, mu or delta receptors to block perception of pain in an individual. Studies in birds have shown a higher presence of kappa receptors when compared to mu receptors in most species. As such, the use of butorphanol in birds is the most commonly used injectable analgesic, given it has been seen to provide a more consistent effect. However, studies in birds of prey are showing that the potential for buprenorphine to be an effective alternative is increasing. It is, however, important to note that buprenorphine has been shown to have comparatively little effect on parrot species.
Studies in birds have shown a higher presence of kappa receptors when compared to mu receptors in most species. As such, the use of butorphanol in birds is the most commonly used injectable analgesic
NSAIDs The other most commonly used drugs for avian analgesia are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). These target the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme in the arachidonic acid pathway. COX-2 inhibitors are preferred, given the reduction in the physical side effects seen with COX-1. In particular, the reduction of side effects seen within the renal and gastrointestinal systems is marked (Hawkins, 2006). Meloxicam is a frequently used and effective COX-2 inhibitor, and a good option for orally medicating birds.
I was wondering if NSAIDs were widely used. I’m kind of surprised they use Suboxone!
Your initial question had me wondering how I would go about asking that question at the clinic without feeling like I was fishing. 😂
I wonder if it being designed to prevent it from being abused is a factor. I don’t know where we keep restricted items there, but nothing we have is very secure that I’ve seen. It may also keep costs down if that isn’t valuable outside of a treatment scenario.
Storytime! A long time ago (80s), a family member banged Dilaudid, heroin, whatever. Flash forward to the early aughts, I had the privilege of witnessing someone under the influence of nonprescription Suboxone. The results, including the nodding, weren’t that different. I was somewhat alarmed.
I’m sure each body chemistry is individual, but it turns out Suboxone is surprisingly abusable. That being said, I also don’t know if that person was under the influence of anything else. They denied it but it also turns out nodding isn’t conducive to questioning and I’m not a trained specialist, so there’s that.
As someone without much drug experience, the skimming I did on suboxone made it sound much less than ideal. It seems to make other drugs work less positively and have more severe side effects. I suppose if it was literally the only thing one could get their hands on, it would be relatively better than nothing in the immediate moment, but make everything after worse for a few days. That kinda makes me sad people feel the need to resort to this kind of stuff and I wish getting help for addiction was easier.
Well, the good news is, the Suboxone person did get clean, cold turkey. They weren’t a regular narcotics user, just sporadically when life pressures were unbelievably difficult, which it obviously exacerbated them but twithout a pressure valve, the human psyche will undergo a very painful undoing. It’s the reason I’m adamant about single payer comprehensive health. We’re only as strong as the weakest among us. Rather than using them for legal chattel slaves, I imagine how great as a whole we can become, while also understanding potential isn’t the same as actually achieved outcome, which is still an improvement, from my perspective.
The banger died, but mostly from aging out. Go figure.
I agree fully we all deserve to not get left behind or punished for medical reasons. It seems crazy to me that is a considered a personal responsibility in places.
i’ve got a friend in veterinary medicine. it’s surprising to a layperson like me how similar our metabolisms are to the various critters. they get a lot of the same medications we do, just scaled for their body masses.
Yes, I was really surprised when one of my fur babies was prescribed gabapentin!
the worst was when i was fighting and fighting with my MD over a drug test that popped (it was methyl-something. not methadone. all because of a mild opioid he prescribed, but he was too up his own ass to know that) and by the time i got through to him and got a more reputable non-roadside-cop-quality-drug-test where i pissed clean, my orange had an emergency vet visit where they prescribed him the high quality narcotic i had been popping positive. i’m like, well, i never tried it, and now i have the chance, but i don’t fuck with opiates this is the absolute worst time to do so if even if i did.
Dangerous angle!
Watch out if that cloaca starts twitching! Incoming!
