After losing her mate a female mute swan crossed the road from very small pond to our big lake. We started to feed her (cracked corn and chicken pellets feed). Our lake has some long-leaf pines around and now we see that she has a needle in her mouth! And read at your site that it is lethal!

Also, when she came she already had a hole (about 1/2 inch) in her foot. Now we have noticed that she has two more very small holes with a bigger (about 1/2 inch) whitish area around them. We do not know if that is a recent development or if we just have not noticed them before.

What can we do for her? In particular, how can we get the pine needle out of her mouth? We can feed her bread by hand (very carefully), but I don't want to pull the needle out because I don't want to get my fingers that close to her beak!

The pine trees here are all around the lake, so she can't get away from them. Their needles are about twelve inches long. The one in her mouth has jammed in the back and then broken off so that less than one inch of it is sticking out of her beak.

How serious is her foot? Is it some fungus that could be spreading?

In our Southern town there is a small ZOO which has a female mute swan and two black swans on very small artificial pond. We would hate to see our swan on the miniature pond but she could see/be with the other swan. Maybe they would take her and take care of her. We would be sad to see her go but if that is the only option to save her, we gladly do it!

Please, advise.