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I spent most of last night trying to find the last 2 posts from my old Blog, but no luck.
We recently had another juvenile gannet in, about the same age as the one from a few 
weeks ago, found grounded near Moreton-in-Marsh. He had no injuries but was underweight. We kept him for a few days and then took him to the RSPCA's wildlife unit near Taunton where he has joined another gannet of a similar age, and hopefully they are both going for release fairly soon.
weeks ago, found grounded near Moreton-in-Marsh. He had no injuries but was underweight. We kept him for a few days and then took him to the RSPCA's wildlife unit near Taunton where he has joined another gannet of a similar age, and hopefully they are both going for release fairly soon.Over the past 23 years, we have dealt with most species of British wildlife, we don't get many 'firsts', but we recently took in a juvenile merganser which had been hand-reared, had no waterproofing and would not feed itself, having to be force fed constantly. The feeding problem was overcome immediately - prior to coming to us she had only been offered chopped fish which she wouldn't take, a very common problem with fish-eating birds which do not recognise chopped fish as food. As soon as we put a bowl of whole whitebait in front of her, she downed the lot in a matter of minutes!
Secondly we started giving her a daily supplement of thiamine along with other vitamins and minerals. Fish which has previously been frozen is often used for captive birds, and the freezing process destroys the thiamine (Vitamin B1) which therefore needs to be supplemented to avoid health problems.
The biggest problem was her lack of waterproofing. We noticed that she never preened herself, never seemed to look after her feathers at all and they looked very dirty and oily, so we bathed her in warm water and washed her feathers using Fairy Liquid - the water was disgustingly dirty. When we had finished she looked like a totally different bird and straight away set about preening herself and repositioning all her feathers.
She has improved tremendously since she came in, she has had two baths now and spends her time in and out of her water tray, drying out under the infra-red light we have provided and is constantly preening.
We are hoping that, in time, she will be releasable but we need to assess the extent of her imprinting as she was hand-reared.
To be continued...............
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