Can someone tell me what the heck this is?

My macaw grows the same feather in the same place everytime. 2 vets have told me its a twisted feather and to watch she doesnt pick at it. They both pulled them out after the blood retracted. But it keeps coming back and it seems painful. My vet said he could preform perform surgery on this one but that it will keep growing back and continue its course. She doesn't play with it or take them out on her own. He said surgery is risky because of birds and their limited blood supply. Anyone know what this is or what else i could do? Also shes been fully plucked underneath her wings since i rescued her 10+ years ago. This feather thing is new in about the last 9 months.

I am not a vet, but have you had her tested for beak and feather disease? I just want to emphasize that I am NOT contradicting your vet. I am just throwing out ideas.

https://www.petcoach.co/article/psittacine-beak-and-feather-disease-pbfd-in-birds/

Is your vet a certified avian vet? that is very important, since some vets do have some bird experience and call themselves 'exotic' vet. An avian certified vet will have had specific training on nothing but birds.

Thank you for rescuing this blue and gold macaw!

Yup, that is a pretty mangled feather growing there.

Sunny had a few smaller look-a-likes (barbering parrot as well)- but somehow they straightened out again.
(Though she gnaws off most of the primaries and secondaries once they are done growing ...)
Not sure if it was the change in diet (more greens, fresh oily nuts, better quality pellets) or the fact she learned to gnaw willow part-time instead of her feathers all the time.


I think what your vet was hinting at is the removal of the complete follicle -> the place where the feather originates.
It is like removing the entire nailbed if a nail keeps growing croocked and in.
It is not huge surgery - but I would be very, very carefull in picking the surgeon - if you decide that is what is needed.
(It they only damage it but not cleanly remove it ... you might get ingrown/ under the skin frankenstein-feathers) and if they damage the one next door - you'll have more deformed feathers.


My personall guess is that she pinched it while it was still in the stage of poking the pinfeather out of the skin (always a very annoying day or so), and because of that it malformed.
Not a certainty!
Just something I see happening here: on day a perfectly formed and smooth cream looking pinfeather will appear, the next day day there will be some bruised looking band in/ around it, and it will "malfunction" that part of the feather underneath.
It kind of tightnes and hardens (very locally) so the growing feather underneath that part suffers (not enough nutrition?) and is also hardens to a point the parrot has issues removing it.
(I have been peeling those bands from Sunny's tailfeathers for weeks now and it really helps in damagecontroll somehow)


I am glad they at least stopped pulling it.

She had been having the exactly same feather every molt?

(I have this silly theory that if you leave the feather it might influence the follicle in building a better one next time. If the follicle is to blame and not a certain parrot of course. Form follows funtion and function demands form.)

Ive taken her to two certified avian vets. One being her primary.. they've done all the blood work in the book. She came back clean. The feather comes back everytime this one eventually falls out. Its not even when just molting it eventually ( about 8 weeks) falls out then another exactly alike grows back. The images are on two separate occasions.

Ugh, if they are always indentical... probably a damaged follicle then


Did anything change the last year (you've had her for 10+ years and she only has this going on for 9 months now?)-
As I read it this feather has been normal and started changing 9 months ago?
(Or did I misread and was there *no* feather till 9 months ago? / sorry to be annoying about this. It's fridayevening here, and I am a bit daft.)



My first CAV (not a fan btw) also thought pulling those out was the answer (it was with my first grey and a misshapen bloodfeather/ yup, he was a plucker too- the parrot, not the vet).
Since your feather has been pulled out twice... it obviously is not the aswer to your problem.


With a "normal" parrot you'd say 'just snip it off (less annoying to the parrot) and see what happens at the next natural molt' - maybe the follicle will still heal up; but you probably do not want to do that to an already barbering/plucking one because you might set her off again.
(If you are a bit like me you treasure any feather that pops up)


I so wish I had a real answer for you...




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Possibly silly question ....but: have you read up on something called "anglewing" ?
it is either an outward twisting of the feathers of something went wrong on a musculo-skeletal-level
not usual found in parrots, more a long-legged bird problem (he had a young stork as an example) or waterfowl (always foodissues with those).
(I've just been reading up on the site of belgian CAV - his blog is a realistic one, with many photographs, so I shall not post it here -- likely far to gruesome or traumatic for most "happy browers")
According to his findings they are the result of an illness or fooddeficiency - an that is why the feather get malformed in an outward twist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_wing


does your feather look anyting like that?
(when it is with the other ones)
When they occur in adult-birds it's always on the left side appearently ...


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Has your macaw shed/ molted any other flightfeathers on the wing since all this started?
(as in: new normal feathers as well?

I think I saw a pinfeather in the first picture, but not sure if that is another primary.)