On December 28, an adult Turkey Vulture was found by the side of the road in Lexington, Virginia. The vulture’s rescuers picked it up and transported it to the Wildlife Center that same day.
Upon admission, the vulture was quiet, but alert. Dr. Dana and diagnostic intern Julia examined the vulture and performed a physical exam. Once Julia started to pick up and restrain the vulture, the bird began to regurgitate – vomiting is a notorious defense mechanism of vultures! Dr. Dana found that the vultures crop was distended – as though it had a lot of food in it that it wasn’t digesting well. The bird was also having difficulty breathing. While no other physical abnormalities were noted, blood work revealed a “high” lead level – meaning the exact lead reading was too high for the Center’s machine to read.
Julia diluted the blood sample, a technique that the Wildlife Center uses to interpret the “high” reading on the in-house lead level machine. After the sample was diluted twice, Julia noted a reading of 6.1 ppm – an extremely high level of lead. While this level of lead would be deadly in a different species, turkey vultures tend to be more resistant to the effects of lead than other species. While Dr. Dana and Julia knew that the prognosis for this vulture was still poor with such a high lead level, they decided to proceed with treatment.
The first thing Dr. Dana and Julia needed to do was to remove the food that was stuck in the vulture’s crop. Julia anesthetized and intubated the vulture, and Dr. Dana proceeded to flush out the crop using a diluted antibacterial solution. Once they were satisfied that the vulture’s crop was empty, they bandaged the crop to help hold it in place – this sort of pressure bandage provided support and prevented the expansion of the crop during feedings. The vulture recovered and received its first dose of chelation therapy. It was placed in the Center’s holding room for the night.
The following day, radiographs were taken of the vulture. Dr. Dana noted four pieces of lead in the vulture’s stomach. Dr. Dana planned a feeding protocol to help things “move along” through the vulture’s system so that the lead fragments would pass. Dr. Dana prescribed a twice-a-day feeding plan: in the mornings, the vulture would receive a specialized diet for carnivores that is highly digestible; in the evenings, the vulture would receive Metamucil.
On January 1, the vulture was considerably brighter and was attempting to stand in its enclosure. The team will continue to monitor the bird; additional radiographs will be taken to check for the lead fragments.