Common Raven #14-1100 update

Raven #14-1100 has been doing well this past month. She has been housed in one of the Center’s outdoor C-pens while the staff monitored her feather growth.

To keep her engaged, the Raven has received enrichment almost daily. Enrichment includes unique food items or food delivery (e.g., food stuffed inside a rubber dog toy), changing the perches in her enclosure, or placing different substrates in trays on the enclosure floor (e.g., dead leaves and rocks in an aluminum tray). Rehabilitation intern Jordan recalls putting “cricket ice cubes” in the bird’s water dish.

Veterinary intern Dr. Meghan Feeney performed a “feet and feather check” on the Raven on September 19, and while the raven has grown several new feathers, eight of the bird’s primary feathers on both the left and right wings are still broken or tattered. Birds cannot be released with many broken or missing primary feathers, as they would be unable to fly. In order to expedite the raven’s release, the veterinary staff decided to imp the bird’s feathers – essentially, a “feather transplant” would be performed with intact donor feathers.

Imping feathers is an intricate process and requires a great deal of preparation, including the collection of the appropriate feathers from a donor bird. Dr. Dave reached out to the wildlife rehabilitation community to find the necessary feathers. Feathers were donated from Avian Haven in Maine and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota.

 

On September 25, the staff prepared the Raven and the donor feathers for an imping procedure. The process was successfully completed in approximately an hour. Six feathers were imped on the right wing and one was imped on the left. One feather shaft on the left wing was too damaged to imp.

The staff will monitor the imped feathers to ensure they remain intact and will test the bird’s flight capabilities before assessing the bird for release.