The following story about a peregrine falcon was submitted by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.
In June of 2022, rehabilitators at WRCNU received a call about a juvenile peregrine falcon exhibiting strange behavior. Rescuers described watching her fly into a fence, and as they approached she ran right up to them. On intake she was 760 g (about 1.7 pounds), had a wound to her cere, abnormal beak wear, overall poor feather condition, and severe pododermatitis (“bumblefoot”) affecting both feet.
Based on her condition, we believe she was neglected by someone who was not qualified to keep a bird of prey and either escaped or was abandoned.
Because she was so weak we chose to feed her EmerAid IC Carnivore twice a day before reintroducing whole foods. Once she became stronger she underwent her first surgery to address the lesions on her feet. A culture was taken and a whole host of antibiotic-resistant bacteria were discovered, greatly slowing the rate of healing.
While she was prescribed antibiotics to target those specific bacteria, we noticed that it was causing her to vomit. Because she was continuing to lose weight, we put her back on EmerAid tube-feeding for the duration of those antibiotics, and that seemed to stop her from vomiting.
After several months and more surgeries to continue cleaning out infection, we are finally seeing some progress to getting the infection under control. She is now maintaining at about 1,020 g (about 2.2 pounds).
Due to being imprinted on humans and the chronic infection in her feet, we plan on placing her with a licensed facility as an education ambassador for her species.