Many crashes or collisions with power lines, cars, window panes, or the like end fatally immediately, so no help is possible. However, if the bird initially survives the impact, quick action is needed: Shock treatment must be administered by a veterinarian as quickly as possible.
Do not attempt to give water or food under any circumstances!
Convulsions and central nervous system disorders can have very different causes. They often occur as a result of an accident, and sometimes an affected swift gets away with a concussion, is merely weak and dazed, and recovers after a few days of rest and warmth. However, if more serious symptoms occur, such as convulsions, spinning movements, tumbling, stereotypical head movements, the prognosis is doubtful. Such patients belong in the hands of a bird-experienced veterinarian as quickly as possible!
Convulsions are also observed in hand-raised swifts that are appropriately fed with insects. The underlying cause is a deficiency of B-complex vitamins.
The symptom complex of Vitamin B deficiency can occur very suddenly, progress rapidly, and if untreated can lead to death in the worst case. The course is more dramatic the younger the swift: A nestling only a few days old can die from it within an hour.
Symptoms begin imperceptibly with loss of appetite, fixed stare, and compulsive head movements and escalate to throwing the head back, uncontrolled convulsions, and circular movements. In adult birds, blood-curdling screams, painful clutching, and wild thrashing have also been observed. Such seizures can be immediately resolved by a veterinarian through an injection of vitamin B complex. Usually, the birds are inconspicuous again half an hour later.
Swifts fed with mealworms or low-quality crickets are affected more quickly, as are those that must remain in human care beyond the normal rearing period, e.g., "feather pushers". However, over the past few years, for as yet unexplained reasons, the susceptibility of swifts in human care has generally increased so much that it is recommended to have a veterinarian prophylactically administer a subcutaneous injection of vitamin B complex every 10-12 days.
Administration of vitamin B into the beak has proven largely ineffective in swifts. Preventive administration with food also does not always seem to prevent deficiency symptoms. The symptom complex of vitamin B deficiency is also known in swallows and other insect-eating songbirds kept in human care.