2006-12-18 11:33:37 · 8 answers · asked by lisa l 1 in Pets ➔ Birds
there are no nerves in bird feet....thats why they can stand on snow without pain.
2006-12-18 11:34:51 · answer #1 · answered by sikla_of_dragga 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As a matter of fact, birds' feet can freeze. This is why ducks and other fowl tuck their feet under their wings one at a time. They can also get frost bit from the cold without being near snow or ice. It just takes a longer period of time for the cell to become cold enough and die. Much longer than a human cell.
2006-12-18 11:36:56 · answer #2 · answered by Horsetrainer89 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have raised chickens in Alaska for years. Birds' feet do freeze. Sometimes they lose a claw, or a whole toe, to frostbite. They can feel their feet and they do suffer from the cold. A dry place to stand, nest and roost is a very kind gesture to your bird friends. So is the extra food they need to keep warm.
All birds have a few ways of avoiding frozen feet:
1. They eat a lot, and burn a lot of fuel.
2. They sit on their feet when it is cold, sheltering their toes up in their down.
3. They pull up one foot at a time to warm them if they are unable to roost or nest and warm them both, like when feeding.
4. They completely waterproof their feet with the secretions fromn a gland at the base of their tail. Staying dry keeps you warm.
5. Just like your fingers, bird feet 'blanch' when they are cold. This conserves heat for the core, but also by circulating less blood in the skin surface you prevent overcooling of the internal blood, and sacrifice skin for meat.
Seabirds and a few other northern birds also have heat exchangers in their legs. Their veins and arteries run right next to each other so that the heat loss from their feet does not drop their core temperature. This adaptation will make their feet *colder* but this also cools their blood more slowly so that some constituents of normal bird blood do not make it all the way to the ends of their toes to form crystals, but hang up a bit sooner. It is the crystalization of fluids that does the damage in freezing tissue, and these crystals can also block capillaries at the ends of toes or at the skin surface which heat the toes and skin surface causing frostbite.
2006-12-18 13:29:33 · answer #3 · answered by Gina C 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
birds cant feel their feet at all, so they might freeze, but the birds cant tell, all it would do was make them a little clumsy
2006-12-18 12:05:20 · answer #4 · answered by katie 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is nothing there to freeze.
2006-12-18 11:40:43 · answer #5 · answered by markos m 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they have antifreeze in their feet instead of blood! OMG!
2006-12-18 11:35:33 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
they migrate!!!
2006-12-18 11:35:27 · answer #7 · answered by jen kutcher 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
maybe they do...
2006-12-18 11:35:56 · answer #8 · answered by IMHO 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋