Wildlife Clinical Service Casebook
Chelsea the Kiwi
Chelsea is a 9 year old North Island Brown kiwi that was captive bred and reared at Mt. Bruce. She was brought to the Massey University wildlife ward in August of 2008 because her keepers thought she was having seizures. When she arrived the doctors didn’t see any seizures but she was throwing her head back and shaking it. Blood work and X-rays were done, and the blood work came back normal but the X-rays showed a small piece of metal in her gizzard. The size was considered too small to cause heavy metal poisoning and her blood work did not show elevated levels of zinc or lead (the two most common heavy metals to cause a toxicity), however, given her signs they decided to treat her as if it was and flush it out of her body. She was given Metamucil to help her pass it, which she did with no problems. She recovered well and was sent home.
She was brought back to Massey on 16/01/09 because she was over due for laying an egg. She was suspected of being “egg bound”, which means the egg is stuck in the oviduct (the uterus in birds) and the bird cannot lay it. This can cause a lot of problems and once a bird has been affected it is likely to reoccur in that bird. Her blood work showed changes expected for a bird about to lay. An ultrasound was done and an egg was found, but the egg shell had not calcified (hardened). She was monitored closely and X-rayed 4 days later at which time the egg still had not calcified so she was left for another 6 days. She was X-rayed a second time on the 26th of Jan and by that time the egg had calcified. The egg looked normal with a good size and normal outline, and her oviduct did not appear to have any abnormalities in it so she was left for another 2 days to have the egg on her own. By the 28th she still had not laid the egg so the decision was made to take her to surgery to remove the egg. During the surgery the doctors found that she had a lot of adhesions (scar tissue attachments between organs and the body wall) on her oviduct and fluid in her abdomen, which indicated that she had had an infection for a while. They suspected something called egg yolk coelomitis (or yolk peritonitis). This occurs when the bird ovulates but the egg doesn’t go into the oviduct where it should, and goes into the abdominal cavity where it causes irritation and infection. The doctors suspected that the infection was from an ovulation in August and that the signs she was showing back then were from pain caused by this infection and not from the metal in her gut. Samples were taken for bacterial culture and Chelsea was started on antibiotics. When the results came in no bacteria could be found but her antibiotics were continued until the course was done.
The doctors were worried that Chelsea would have a rough recovery and would not eat for a few days. However, she recovered from surgery quite well and was eating right away. She is a tough, feisty little kiwi and even after surgery was still hard to handle. She was brought back to Mt. Bruce on 05/02/09 and once her oviduct has returned to the size it was before the egg went through, she will be brought back to Massey to have her it removed in order to prevent her from getting egg bound again in the future.
Chelsea’s eggs in the past have been infertile so the egg was not saved and incubated. The egg is going to be sent back to Mt. Bruce where they will blow out the yolk and use the shell to help repair cracked eggs which are fertile and help future generations of kiwis be hatched.
Chelsea has a bold nature which makes her a good nocturnal house resident and she will come out when people are around, going about her business as if they weren’t there. So if you want to see a kiwi displaying some natural behaviors go to Mt. Bruce and pay Chelsea a little visit.
Jessica Matt BVSc 2009
