St Helens on her back

[natamambo]

Compare how the wings are sitting, if one looks out of alignment she coud have a broken wing. We had a longtail who behaved like that, every time he tried to fly he'd just roll over as he took off and land on his back. Vet said he might come good so wait and see. 48 hours in hospital cage and a couple of weeks in a small cage and then a bigger cage until he could fly again. Good as gold now.

[birdmad]

Sadly i think your both right. She cant live like this. I think maybe she has a broken hip? We have a rogue Wattle bird in the garden and it keeps flying at our avairies and slapping its wings as it gets close - maybe it scared her. We've never had to do this before - whats the kindest way?

[Tiaris]

The quickest is usually the kindest. I either throw them forcefully onto a hard surface or pull off the head. Sounds terrible but its quick.

[Lukec]

The quickest is usually the kindest. I either throw them forcefully onto a hard surface or pull off the head. Sounds terrible but its quick.

I would agree, throwing them to the ground is the easiest method.

[finches247]

I agree Best option throw bird to floor.

[birdmad]

Well thankfully I didnt have to do that (I was kind of hoping I could bore her to death).
We decided to wait one more day as we were going to the place we got her from and the owner of the place has over 30 years of experience with birds. Also she had stayed upright for 12 hours when we were leaving. After explaining what was happening he said it definately sounded like concussion. He suggested we put her in a small cage, feed her lots of greens and in around 5 to 6 weeks she should come good. She was still upright when we got home - about 4 hours later.
She is now in a cage with the perches as low as they can be - she flutters up onto the perches and tweets a lot. She has only toppled over a few times. She may never make it back into the avairy but she will have a nice spoilt life in a cage.
We got another hen for the cock in the avairy. Thanks for all the advice.

[birdmad]

Thanks vettepilot - it certainly seems your first post was spot on.