Pet bird just flew into a window. What can I do?

[graceomalley]

We only let our bird fly free in our two living rooms because they're safe (older style house means there are no windows in the room for it to crash into). It's a very tame bird and we've never had any problems with this.

But my son just left the door to the kitchen open and the bird flew into a window. He was very, very shaky - wobbling on the floor. I picked him up and sat still with him on my lap. He vomited twice and has his feathers puffed up. Is there anything I can do either way? If he's going to die is there anything we can do to prevent it? What should I look for so that I can prepare the kids for the worst?

It happened about 20 minutes ago. At the moment he's sitting on my shoulder rubbing my cheek with his head (occasionally leans over and gives me a 'kiss' on the lips - he's trained to do this, he knows when he gives a kiss he gets a scratch on his head). He's not wobbling or shaky now. He's walking from shoulder to shoulder and is giving an occasional tweet.

I did some googling and could only find answers for wild birds who have flown into an outside window (put it in a box, take it to a wildlife rescue).

Thanks for any help.

[Autumn Breeze]

I wish I could tell you. The vomiting would be a red flag for me to take a bird to the vet.

What kind of bird?

[graceomalley]

It's a cockatiel.

I would take him to the vet, but it's Sunday here. If his condition gets worse I'll ring around to see if there's an on call vet working today.

He seems to be getting back to his normal self - it's been an hour since it happened and he's walking all over the room. He isn't really attempting to fly, but he jumped (huge bounce) from a box to my lap about 10 minutes ago.

[Autumn Breeze]

I hope he makes a recovery

When birds go, they go quick, usually little warning. Ours went very quickly, with out known injury.

[outlier]

I think all you can do is make sure he's warm and safe, and keep a close eye on him. When birds smack into windows and die, it's almost always from a brain hemorrhage, which I don't think you can do anything about if it's happening. I think it's a great sign he's perked up and is acting normal already. In case he does have a brain injury, I'd keep him as quiet as possible for a couple weeks to give him a chance to heal.

I hope he's okay, poor thing!

[Purple*Lotus]

I do not have a bird, but I found this on new posts. I wanted to say that I am so sorry this happened to the little guy I hope that he makes a full recovery!

[graceomalley]

Thanks so much for your thoughts and input. I really appreciate it.

It's been over 5 hours now and he seems to be back to his normal self - no shaking or wobbling, he's squawking as usual and is flying from person to person to get scratches. I'm hoping that it means he's going to be okay.

I spoke to my Dad (I couldn't contact him earlier when it first happened otherwise I would have just called him - he bred exotic birds for many years) and Dad said the bird probably would have died within 10 minutes if it was serious. He said it sounds like we had a case of bird concussion, so he could still die - but like Outlier said, there's nothing we can do about it. Hopefully, though, since he's chirpy (haha) and seemingly normal it's going to have a good outcome (and the kids will be a lot more diligent about shutting the doors).

[Katie T]

When our pet bird flew into a window (parakeet) he died within minutes. Aren't birds fun? I was lucky enough to grow up raising birds, doved, parakeets, cockatiels, and a lutino ringneck parrot.
The cockatiels would talk and the male one was named Baby. My mom would sing this song with his name in it and the bird started looking at himself singing the song. One day he got out and my dad walked around parks in town singing the song. We did get the bird back but he was never the same.

The parrot talked as well of course. Just a really neat experience living with birds.

Hope all was ok with your bird.