Winston the galah, being weighed
when first arriving into care
(notice off balance stand,
resulting from callous attack)

After some time in care,
Winston is showing improvement

Winston was a fledgling galah just learning to fly when he came across an unfortunate group of children in a small town on the South Australia/Victoria border. He was found being tormented and kicked around on the ground by these kids and had some serious injuries as a result. When I was called out to rescue him I found him in a sorry state sitting forlornly in a cardboard box in his rescuer's bathroom.

Upon examination he was completely paralysed down one side of his body. The right wing hung limply and the right leg was completely immobile with no foot grip, movement or reaction at all. No breaks were evident in either the wing or leg. Possibly he was kicked in the head and suffered a stroke resulting in paralysis down one side, or suffered nerve and muscle damage from kicks to the right side of his body. Mercifully he didn't appear to have any head injuries - eyes were bright and alert. No bleeding evident. Internal injuries were, however, likely given the extent of the physical trauma he had suffered. He was treated for shock and dosed with metacam for pain relief, and placed in a small confined hospital cage on heat overnight until he could be seen by the vet in the morning.

The vet was able to confirm that there were no breaks, and we decided upon a "wait and see" approach for a week to determine whether there was any improvement during that time. Much relieved that he was to be given at least a week's reprieve, Winston returned home. But the prognosis did not look good. We very much suspected he would not recover sufficiently to be able to be released and, at that time, the intention was essentially to see whether he could recover enough to have a reasonable quality of life in captivity. It looked very unlikely that he would be able to fly again, and if he was unable to perch or move around, his quality of life in captivity would be intolerable and euthanasia would be the kindest option. If his injuries had occurred as a result of a more "innocent" event, such as a car hit, I suspect we would have been more inclined to euthanase him outright and spare him a lengthy rehabilitation with a poor prognosis. But sentimentality kicked in and, given his injuries had occurred at the hands of humans I was damned if I was going to euthanase him without a fight. The fact that, despite his suffering at the hands of people, he was extremely trusting of us made us all the more determined.

He was treated for shock and given pain relief for 48 hours. He was completely unable to perch due to his useless foot. He would reluctantly eat when force fed granivore mix. His movement was restricted to avoid any further damage to the wing or leg.

After a couple of days he no longer seemed to be in pain and the metacam was stopped. He started showing much more interest in his surroundings and perked up considerably at meal times, starting that charming enthusiastic gulping sound baby galahs make when being fed. The ratio of food all down his front vs food into his mouth started to improve in favour of the latter.

After 3 or 4 days we started some physio to see what level of improvement we could get, and to avoid muscle wastage. It started with walks around the lawn. At first, he could only uselessly drag the injured leg behind him, a heartrending sight. But within 24 hours or so he was able to use the leg slightly and, although he walked with a heavy limp, became reasonably mobile. Around this time he was able to use his damaged foot enough to perch, which was a massive step forward and a considerable improvement over sitting on towels. His wings were also worked on - initially just stretching the injured wing out to put it through its range of extension and movement. Then he was held on outstretched hands which were gently dropped, and he would stretch out both wings for balance. The damaged wing didn't have the same degree of extension as the good wing initially but this did improve over time to the point he could voluntarily stretch it out and then tuck it back into the body again - a huge improvement on his initial presentation.

By this stage (about 7 days after the incident) we were satisfied that, at the very least, he shouldn't be euthanased as he could have some quality of life in captivity (much as I dislike keeping birds in captivity). He was a delightful little fellow, wandering around the lawn looking for the seed I scattered in there and endlessly begging for food - that wheedling call which increased in pitch and urgency the longer it was ignored. He would gently peck at my foot to prompt it to regurgitate some food for him. He looked so devastated when the foot didn't oblige.

At one stage I was lying on the lawn with the roo joeys reading a book. Winston started at my feet, pecking at them and begging. He worked his way up to my head, the calls increasing in urgency until he was standing next to my head screaming hysterically directly into my ear, scarcely pausing to draw breath. I developed a fresh appreciation for the work parent galahs do in the wild! Needless to say the roos weren't terribly fond of Winston, shattering the peace regularly with his wailing and pecking at their faces if they went too close.

The improvement in his foot and wing increased daily. During physio he could now flutter off the outstretched hands to the ground - initially with a pretty rough crash landing but eventually more controlled. He could now perch almost normally and although he still walked with a limp he could move around at roughly the same speed as a normal galah on the ground.

There were some set backs - he did develop some diarrhoea but a worming and a course of antibiotics cleared that up.

One Saturday morning during the physio session he unexpectedly took off from my hands and flew straight over the fence - smack bang into the neighbour's yard which housed a yappy dog. After frantically banging on the door waking them up (not much appreciated at 7am on a Saturday) we discovered he had had the good sense to land on the woodshed out of reach of the dog (who was more interested in sniffing my nether regions than bothering Winston). But at this point we knew Winston would be able to be released. He clearly wanted it - when the wild galahs flew overhead he would get so excited calling to them, that we knew the time was close for his release.

After 3 weeks in care, Winston took off. Sadly we didn't see his departure - we had known the time had come and for several days we had been letting him out on the lawn for several hours at a time, assuming he would take off when he was ready to do so.

One morning he was let out at 7.30am - by the time we went to check on him an hour later he had gone. We regularly watch the large flock of several hundred galahs that lives in our area, wondering which one is Winston. Although he almost certainly won't live as long in the wild as he would have done in captivity, we gladly gave him his freedom. When you see a flock of galahs wheeling overhead calling to each other, or eating on a paddock side by side, you really appreciate that a life in captivity is no way for them to live.