Red Rump help!

[veimar]

Hi everyone, sorry I've been missing so long, but my birds were doing great. Except today when I came home after 2 days away. We have to leave our birds for up to 48 hours once in a while, and it never has been a problem.
This time I came home to discover my new red rump girl Onyx (we had her for about 6 months since she was very young - I posted here too), lost ALL her flight and almost all tail feathers!!! :11: The ends of her wings are just bare skin! Not bleeding anymore, but ugly enough, poor thing. There was blood on the cage, and even drops on the window next to the cage! The feathers were all over the place, a few broken, but most had been probably chewed off - they had split shafts. She was in cage with my two budgies, and there was no way any of them could harm her. The budgies are fine. It looked like Onyx had thrashed around the cage frantically...

I'm at total loss what had happened. She is a very calm bird, not really tame, and fully flighted. When other birds get spooked and fly away screaming, she would just sit there looking at them like, what are you afraid of, stupid? If something spooked them at night my tiel would be the first to thrash around, but he is totally fine. My only clue is that as she is used to be cage free a lot she might have gotten frantic about not being able to get out of the cage. But she has been in that cage many times before for a while and was comfortable. And why would she thrash harming herself? She never had a night fright since we had her.

Now she cannot fly at all, and I have her on me on the sofa so she doesn't have to stay in that cage. I'm surprised how tame she suddenly became - before that she didn't wan't to do anything with me, and now she is climbing all over me and sitting on my shoulder for a long time. She seems okay - eats well and is pretty vocal, so I'm not sure I take her to a vet at this point. The earliest I could take her is Thursday, so I see how she feels by then.
If you have any ideas of what have happened and why, I would really appreciate. I hate this to happen if future...

 

[SilverSage]

I'm so sorry this happened

First, I wouldn't rule out budgie mania if I were you. Keep a close eye on that, especially since there are two budgies.

It could be that she spooked and dropped her tail, but that wouldn't have caused the wing issue. It could be that she somehow injured herself and picked out the feathers due to the pain.

Were you able to ask a vet?

 

[veimar]

Thank you! No I haven't spoken to a vet yet since she is fine so far. If anything goes worse I'll take her immediately. The budgies are afraid of her, and they are the friendliest things ever - so no, they are out. I actually had to go to a two day work trip again with my hubby, and I took her with us. I work on and off, and she is in our office, so it's much better than staying at home. Guess what I found out? She wants to be on me all the time - sits on my shoulder, preens my hair and naps! She suddenly became extremely tame and loving. I have to take her to the cage to eat and drink, and then she wants to come back on me. So... I'm starting to think that maybe she just plucked because of the separation stress? One of my budgie has had that problem, but it's finally under control now. I had to babysit away from home Dec 31-Jan 4 (my hubby was on and off), and this was the longest I've ever been missing. She wasn't tame, but maybe that didn't mean she wasn't attached? Anyone had plucking problem with smaller fids?