Dropping Dead!

[GregH]

Today I caught a Hecks hen in my main aviary by hand and it literally dropped dead of fright. I caught it without a net and the bird immediately went stiff, had a convulsive seizure and died within seconds. I'm currently getting a necroscopy performed at the nearby Veterinary school and may get more of an idea why the bird was so at risk. She wasn't flying at the time so I thought it was sick however after I caught it I noticed she was rather wet and may have over done it in the water while bathing. Have other people had this type of experience and what do they attribute the death to? I'm wondering if assuming broken necks during a night fright is making too much of an assumption and it's more like a stroke.

[jusdeb]

I had a quarrion do this to me once , the vet said they have different hearts than ours and when scared will literally go into heart failure and die ...oh sorry about losing your bird .

[gomer]

I have only had this happen to me when catching a sick bird.I have seen it happen to a seemingly healthy bird being caught by a less experienced person. At the time I thought maybe he held the bird a little tight.And I have heard of this happening from time to time,Maybe its from having a heart attack?

[jusdeb]

In very young birds it can happen when they are grabbed around the crop , it causes them to upchuck and choke .

[desertbirds]

Happened to me with a Black breasted Button quail chick.It was looking healthy and it was 3 or 4 weeks old.I caught it to release into an aviary outside and it literally dropped dead in my hand.I think i made a mistake by rearing that chick inside with no access to natural light.A few months ago i had Redbrow that was having trouble with a leg ring.Whilst trying to remove it she went into shock.I thought she would die but i warmed her up for awhile and she came good.For some reason she has not regained great colour after moulting even though she raised young ones after that incident.

[VR1Ton]

I've got a Scalie about 6 years old, everytime it is caught it has a seizure lasting upto about 30 sec, I just put her in a cage, she'll lay there for a bit, then starts hopping around like nothing has happend. She's done this 6 or 7 times & seems perfectly normal. Not sure if birds can get Epilepsy, but it is most certainly a neurelogical thing, so I suppose a finch could have a similar problem, but being so small may be to much for their systems to handle so keel over. Just a thought.

[jusdeb]

I have a friend ( human ) with narcilepsy , she drops when under stress . Theres a breed of goats that have it so why not birds ?

[cranberry]

I had a turq parrot do this once. It had an overgrown beak so I caught it with the intention of trimming the beak a bit (yeah I know, probably wrong thing to do but I was inexperienced in bird keeping at the time). Anyway, I went to start trimming and it literally went stiff in my hand. Instant death. I couldn't believe it. They definitely have different tickers to mammals. Very susceptible to strokes from stress.

[jusdeb]

From memory and as the vet explained to me they have flow through hearts and when frightened it will pump the blood out too fast for it to refill ..no blood , no oxygen DEAD ...please dont quote me on this it was a long time ago and I have Bart Simpson Disease in that once it gets technical it turns to blah blah blah .

[Alex]

Ive heard lots of stories of hand catching doing this - I seriously believe that there is no way of catching a finch by hand that can be 100% safe for the bird. Have a friend stand 5 metres away and toss 100 raw eggs at you to catch. You may not break all of them - but you WILL break some of them....their bones are hollow and not as strong as ours...and compared to them we are all very big and clumsy - no matter how clever you think you are...buy a fine mesh net.