Some opinions on feather growth?

reeb

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Oct 23, 2017
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Cape Town, South Africa
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Berry (♀ Cockatiel) hatched June 2017
Opal (♂ Budgie) hatched 13 August 2017
Pearl (♀ Budgie) hatched 15 August 2017
+ an aviary of 16 other budgies! all hatched 2014-2017
Hi everyone!

So a little background first. My darling Berry had her flight feathers cut as a baby (not at my request, the breeder did it without asking) and over the past 5 month she has molted and grown back about half (or a little more) of her feathers. The only feathers that have yet to molt are the middle section of each wing. Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago - she was being super cute hanging upside down from my hand and flapping, so excuse the blurriness!
She loves flying, and is pretty good at it considering that she is still missing that section. She gets height, dips and turns, and is really great despite not being given the opportunity to fully fledge.

So anyway, a couple of days ago I noticed a brownish stain around her "short" feathers on her left wing. She has been active and definitely hasn't given any indication of being in pain, and I found no blood in the room or in her cage. She doesn't like her wings being handled (probably from the stress of having them cut) so I just observed her for a while, watching as she stretched and groomed etc for about 30 minutes. It definitely seemed to be focused in that general area, there wasn't an obviously broken feather, and she wasn't and hasn't been phased by it at all.

Now, I am assuming that it was a blood feather growing out that broke/fell out/was pulled out, and that the blood clotted and she's okay now, just a little bit of old blood stain from the feather. Do you think I am right in this assumption? I've had budgies with broken blood feathers before, so I have at least a bit of experience with it. But I dunno, I get super paranoid! Just wanted to ask everyone for their opinions.

Also, I am very curious as to when her middle lot of feathers will molt fully. I've found maybe 4 cut feathers that have fallen out already, but she isn't in full molt at the moment. Any opinions?

Sorry for a bit of a long explanation! Hope everyone is having a great day!:)
 

GaleriaGila

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May 14, 2016
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The Rickeybird, 38-year-old Patagonian Conure
I'm guessing blood feather, too.
I wonder if there are differences between species, buttt...
The Rb moults the three sections at the same time, staggered, symmetrically (left and right).
We need to hear from 'tiel folks!
 

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