Budgie injury..

Question
Hi Chrys,
I have a male English budgie named Joe.  Joe has never been very good at flying.  He always seems to be all over the place, flying into things, or just dropping like a sack of potatoes...  We keep his wings trimmed for fear of him getting injured.
Well last night, he flew into the wall, which wasn't the first time, but this time there was a little blood coming from just underneath his nose.  we got the bleeding to stop very quickly, and it hasn't bled since.  He seems to be ok and, nothing seems to be broken.
I have had budgies all of my life and never had this happen before, is there anything else that I should have done, or should be doing now?
I am willing to take him to the vet, but it would just be a regular vet, and my experience with them is that when it comes to birds, they know just about as much as what I do.  We do not have a avian vet any where near us, which let me to this website.
Again, he seems to be fine, and he has not bled since it happened, but if you know of anything else that I should do, any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again,
sincerely,
Linda  

Answer
Hi, Linda.  Thanks for posting your questions.

If you keep this budgie's wings clipped, I don't understand how he flew into a wall.  Evidently, his clipping isn't good enough to keep him from flying (perhaps more wing feathers need to be clipped or they need to be clipped further down the shaft) because with a good clip, he shouldn't be able to fly much at all.  And always clip both wings...not just one side.  A bird can die instantly from flying into a wall if s/he hits the wall hard enough and/or hits the wall in the right place on it's head.  I assume his breathing is normal and there is no discharge coming from his cere/beak (no caking of anything around either)?

As long as you feel that your budgie is OK, I have to assume he is OK.  You know your bird better than anyone else and it's very difficult to diagnose on a website like this without actually seeing the bird.  As long as the bleeding is stopped, his cere and/or beak isn't torn/cracked, and he is acting normally, then I'd say he is a lucky budgie.  If he had split his cere or broken his beak, you'd have a more serious situation.  Hopefully, you have a bird first aid kit handy to deal with situations like this.

Just to be sure, you can perform a Google search on the Internet using the search string "avian veterarians." This should bring up some websites where you can look by city and state for avian vets in your area.  There may be some and you don't know how to find them.  They would be listed as exotic animal vets.  You could also contact any bird breeders in your area (breeders usually know quite a bit) for referrals and/or local pet shops that sell birds or your newspaper classified ads.  You are correct, regular dog/cat vets usually don't know much about parrots, but it's important that you locate one just in case you might need one in an emergency some day.  I do not recommend you rely on this website as a source for emergency care information, as the next time it could be too late for your budgie.  Also, I recommend you learn as much as possible about budgies, caring for them, and emergency care if you don't have access to avian vets, etc.

I have a website still under construction that has lots of information and links to websites that might interest you.  Visit if you'd like:  http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

I hope Joe is OK and that I've been able to help some.  If not and you have additional questions, please come back.

Chrys