Broken Blood Feather - HELP

[Mindy]

Finnegan broke one once, it was actively dripping - there was no mistaking it. There was no choice but to pull it. It hurt him, he was mad, but the bleeding stopped. I never figured out how it broke, hasn't happened since.

 

[Violet_Diva]

The broken feather length has fallen off, so at least I don't have to worry about it catching on anything now. My main concern was it getting caught up and causing a bleed.

Here is the feather, plus the blood spot that was on the paper in his cage.



I had only been talking to the vet about this specific feather the day before is broke, as when it grew in, it had weak bars throughout, so I was looking to have Gerry's blood looked at to see if there were any obvious nutritional problems that might've caused it to grow like it. You can't see in the photo, but when you hold it up to the light you can see bars of gaps (so it looks stripey).



Here's a better photo of the bars (sorry it's a bit bury.) Asides from the obvious barbing, you can see the missing parts of feather during development causing weak points.

 

[Mindy]

I will be interested to hear what the vet says about that feather. That amount of blood isn't concerning. When we had our episode it was like a drip every second. The feather shaft is basically a small straw connected to the body so when 'the tap' is open it's really open : (

 

[Violet_Diva]

UPDATE
Gerry has been back to the vet today. He decided to bleed from a different blood feather when on the vets table! I think bleeding blood feathers is going to be something I'm going to get used to with him. The main issue is that because of his plucking history, his feathers grow in at very different times and have no other feathers to protect them when they're poking out. The vet saw the progress of his feather regrowth so far and we have decided to give him a year to see how well his feathers grow in. If he still has problems with picking at the old broken quills we will then look at possibly surgically removing them to get his feathers to grow in together all at once. From what I understand, he would need to be knocked out for quite some time during the procedure and it's going to be painful as many of the broken feather shafts are in the bone. So I will avoid having this done if I can. With regards to his weird feather, the vet photographed it and has confirmed we would need to test his blood to see if there are any nutritional problems. So I need to book him in for that (hopefully when he's not already been bleeding that day!)

 

[Mindy]

Poor guy! I hope he doesn't have to get surgery : (