From World Bird Sanctuary
Chiropractic care for birds? We're trying something new for some of our patients with torticollis, a condition where the head is twisted partially or fully upside down! Torticollis can be the result of a number of injuries including head trauma, lead toxicity, and infections. Physical therapy has long been a part of our treatment for torticollis, but isn't always effective. We'd like to thank Heather Seaver for her donation of her chiropractic services to give some of these patients another care option to help them recover. So far, chiropractic seems to be very relaxing to the patients receiving it.
Shown is Barred Owl 24-519 during a chiropractic session. The chiropractic seems to help relax him and there was notable improvement to his muscle tension after his session. 519 is suffering from lead poisoning, some older ocular trauma, and torticollis. When he was found, he kept making it up into a tree but was then not able to fly straight and kept falling back to the ground. This could be from the torticollis, or from the lead poisoning which is causing him to clench his feet and legs abnormally some of the time.
I was a bit surprised to see this. I know there tends to be some debate on if chiropractics is a good thing or not. I'd be very nervous with those hollow bones!
It's a pseudoscience for humans, but perhaps it has actual benefits for treating owls.
I feel bad you are being downvoted.
I did a bit more reading as I find it interested so many dislike the chiropractic practice, while an equal number seem to love it.
Animal chiropractic care looks to be its own thing, with its own licensing and requirements separate to what is done to humans. In that it has to be done with supervision from an actual veterinarian, it seems to have somewhat better oversight than when it is done on humans.
It seems the inventor of chiropractic used demonstrations on animals to try to convince people it wasn't made up. The jury is still out on the practice as a whole, and it sounds like many chiropractors also debate whether it is effective on animals. The whole field really seems to be a mess of people from religious whackos and grifters, to some overlap with accepted modern medicine, such as physical therapy, sports therapy, massage, and ice therapy.
If it helps animals is still debated, but there do not seem to be as many studies as have been done on humans. There are cases where injury has resulted, but also large numbers of people who will swear by the practice.
From Wikipedia
So to those downvoting, I get it, and agree with why you are downvoting, but I feel this comment is making a fair point, as we technically don't seem to have as much actual science on veterinary chiropractic results. It may very well be complete bunk, but as it seems hard to nail down an actual definition for what chiropractic care is, if a person is massaging sore animal parts and giving them physical therapy and calling that chiropractics, I don't feel that is necessarily indefensible.
Again, do not take that as a defense of the practice from me, I lean towards the pseudoscience stance, but with all the vagueness of the industry, I don't feel this comment should be dogpiled.
Yeah, I was a bit confused about the downvotes too. It's not like I was saying owl chiropractic care is healthy, I was just suggesting its effects could differ from that on humans. But the internet's just gonna be like that sometimes.
People get confusing sometimes. Most of my posts get at least one downvote, including the one today that explained the medical condition. Whatever makes them happy, I suppose... ๐