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If you find an injured owl:

Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.

Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.

Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.

If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.

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Coping With Owls (Nail and Beak Trimming) (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by anon6789@lemmy.world to c/superbowl@lemmy.world

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Alice the Great Horned Owl in a towel for bill and talon trimming. Ever since she came to us when she was 1.5 years old the right side of her lower mandible has flared out a bit, making it look like her bill might be misaligned, but it isn't...that's just how it grows. She is 28 years old now, retired, with arthritis, significant cataracts, and atherosclerosis. But she is still spunky!!

From International Owl Center

Today we coped (trimmed bills and talons) on Iris and Alice the Great Horned Owls. Always un-fun, but important. Especially for Alice, it is MUCH easier to have her coped by The Raptor Center during her annual checkup under anesthesia, but we need to cope another couple of times per year.

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[–] onigiri@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

When I was a kid, we had a budgie that needed his beak trimmed every so often. The vet would use a dremel.

The main picture reminds me of how they would deal with one of my cats at the vet sometimes. Except the towel would definitely be covering his head. He really didn’t want to be there and would sometimes try to bite them.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

The vet used to wrap up my cats a bunch too. Some of them were pretty sassy. The old towel toss gets used a lot at the clinic too. Just helps everyone out in the long run.

I really liked when they used the Dremel on my dog's nails, they always looked very nice and shaped well. I see there are some concerns with heat using a Dremel on birds, or just removing too much material too quickly if people are new to doing it. For the dog groomer, they implied the heat was a benefit, driving the quick back as they grinded the nails, and it seems talons also have a quick.

The beak geometry seems especially important and more consequential than the nails. Without teeth or lips or much of a tongue to compensate on any misalignment, that seems to make sense.