Scary stuff

Arion is ill.
We couldn't figure out why we were having to push his weight down so far to get an active response--24-25 oz is low even for a tiercel RT. His keel was so sharp at that weight, by all rights he should have been ravenous... but at 28, 27, 26 oz he just wasn't terribly interested. He'd fly, he'd eat, he responded, but not with any particular zeal.

We took him out for his first free flight last week and, as usual, he was responsive but not keen. He had a couple decent flights, things went okay, but something just wasn't right.

Over the next couple days he became less and less interested in flying, until one day he just sat on the perch with no response at all. He was acting like he was trying to cast a pellet, over and over opening his mouth wide, bobbing his head, trying to yak it up but nothing was happening. After a few minutes he chucked up a small piece of meat he'd flown for a few minutes before.

That's when I called Callan and that's when the connections were made. He has frounce. It's a protozoan, Trichomonas, if you PPH ladies can believe that old friend.

Thinking back over the past few weeks, I remember hard flights and very slight wheezing. I remember taking longer than it should to swallow a tidbit of food. I remember slow response times and low weights despite huge volumes of food. I remember sudden sharp yarak, pleasing to see at the time. The one thing missing is the classic symptom--cheesy plaque in the mouth and throat. He could, and very likely does, have it built up in his esophagus or crop, invisible to me but making it difficult and painful to swallow, another reason he hasn't cast a pellet in five or six days.

This, among a million other reasons, is why we serve a two-year apprenticeship in the US. Frounce is, luckily, easy to treat and red tails are difficult to kill, good for both Arion and me as untreated it's likely to kill them in fairly short order once they start exhibiting visible symptoms. Wild animals don't get sick and languish; visible symptoms make a you an easy target. When birds of prey get sick, they're fine one day then belly-up the next and you get your answers in a necropsy.

The symptoms I saw, painfully clear in retrospect, went right by me. Without the guidance of my sponsors I'd have had a dead hawk in a few days. He's been treated with Flagyl, last course tomorrow, and with any luck the disease is dead and the plaques will recede enough for him to eat comfortably and gain weight within a week or two. The chances are very good he'll be just fine. I'm feeding him ground cottontail, small amounts several times a day, and he's stuffing down everything I offer him and is severely pissed there's not more when he's done. He's drinking and bathing daily, is preening and he's in good feather.

Even still, every time I check on him I'm terrified I'll find him dead.

I will never, never forget how incredibly, remarkably easily I could have killed my hawk in sheer ignorance. I've got two years, and a whole lot to learn.