If you’ve walked around North Pond recently, you may have noticed this goose. It’s suffering from a condition known as Angel Wing Syndrome.
Angel Wing is a condition that affects mostly waterfowl, caused by a nutritional deficiency in vitamins and minerals combined with a high level of carbohydrates and sugars. While a number of factors are involved, human-fed bread is one of the probable causes. It causes the carpal joint (or wrist) on the wing to grow awkwardly, leaving the wing unable to sit flush at the bird’s side. This affects their ability to fly and the growth of their primary flight feathers — making them look more like sticks than feathers.
Damage in fully mature birds is irreversible and likely fatal, due to the inability to fly to food sources and rejection from their flocks. If the bird is young and the diet changes dramatically, however, the damage could be reversed.
Although there are more nutritional foods that humans can provide (like non-moldy cracked corn, wheat, barley or standard birdseed), geese and ducks are grazers and have no trouble finding food on their own. In fact, feeding them can create an unnatural and unhealthy dependence on us as their food providers, and can lead to other problems, like overcrowding and water pollution.
Help keep our waterfowl happy and healthy by spreading the word about the dangers of feeding them bread and crackers. You can download the image below and share it on your own social media channels to help educate your friends, family and neighbors.
I hate when people feed waterfowl bread it makes me really mad ! but its good
that people like you are letting people know about the importance of bread and what it does to the poor animals ! I just told a person just about this and they were shocked and the said they will never feed waterfowl bread again !
Kinda Unfair to get mad at people who just don’t know better
We had signs at our local pond and I pointed out to a guy feeding bread, he said “so”. That’s society today.
He’s right
How hard is it for people to do some easy online research “what to feed geese and ducks”?
There’s no excuse for wilful ignorance.
Can you feed them dried corn tortillas?
No – even though it has corn in it which may SOUND healthy, it’s a processed food for humans with no nutritional value for birds. It’s junk food for them. Wild birds need healthy proteins and carbs to survive – best to simply look up online “what to feed waterfowl” and you will find plenty of suggestions of healthy items to feed them.
People tend to clean out their kitchen pantries and feed them whetever they find there. Most human processed food is not good for birds. Bread products of any kind are not something they eat in nature.
Awesome to know. THANK YOU
Can you trim or cut the Angel wing off
No , it will bleed where the blood flows to the bottom of the feathers.
So, has anyone called the wildlife hospital or a facility that can help to help this goose/duck?
I volunteer with a wildlife rehab network. Adult birds with angel wing are always euthanized, so consider what “help” means to you–euthanasia, or a natural death in the wild where other wildlife can benefit (such as by providing a meal for a fox for example).
Nature can seem cruel, but it’s the way life is meant to be and the best thing we can do for them is to leave them alone.
“Fed wildlife is dead wildlife” no matter how you look at it.
Can angel wings happen on a rooster?
I don’t think so because I feed my chickens corn and watermelon and they don’t have angel wing
It can happen to any bird including non waterfowl. Like Goshawks and Osprey. There’s a case in vet med where a Goshawk was inflicted with it. The recent studies show it isn’t diet but genetic. There may be diet and stress involved acting on the genes but more studies are needed. I recently found a 3 week old Osprey chick in a nest this year that has signs of it. There is a surgery that can be done on adult birds after the bones have mineralized where they can fly afterwards in 50% of cases. On chicks there’s a specialized wrap technique to hold it in place until the feathers grow out and stabilize the bones. I hope more studies show just how this occurs so we can solve this problem.
I would love to know more about this surgery to fix angel wing in adult birds – do you have any articles or reference or any link to info on this? I do waterfowl advocacy and work with some rehabbers. This would be wonderful info to know about.
The people are becoming educated about feeding waterfowl. The last two
years I havent withnessed people feeding the ducks and swans bread (at my
local pond) People are bringing old fashioned rolled oats, peas and saskatoons
I was told that angel-wing is caused by white bread. Is it all bread? And is it the starch? If the latter I would have though wheat and barley and corn would be equally poor. Incidentally I was told about angel-wing from someone working at London Zoo – I can believe it’s also genetic but if zoologists warn about feeding waterfowl breach (they mentioned white bread) then I’m sure it must be true.