Your Advice Needed Please - Cracked Tail Feather

[WannaBeAParrot]

Pritti has a broken tail feather, but still attached. The I noticed it sticking out perpendicular to his other tail feathers a couple of days ago. So it's the wole feather and is cracked about .25 of an inch from his skin. He's been working on trying to get it out but it's not budging. I'm hoping he won't chew it off where the break is, which could start bleeding if there is blood in the shaft. He won't let me look at it, but will let me touch it and I gave it a slight tug at the base and it's firmly in there. So I straightened it out so it won't get caught on anything.

Do you think I should just leave it alone? or -- Do you think I should towel him and snip it off if it doesn't look like a blood feather? Do you think the whole thing should be removed.

Thanks.

 

[MikeyTN]

IF it's a blood feather, best thing you could do is to pluck it! If it's not a blood feather, you could just leave it alone and it will come back once he molts. IF it's bothersome to him, just yank it!

 

[DannyA93]

That sounds very intimadating mikeytn! i would be afraid to just yank a feather out! haha but when i budgie broke a tail feather i just snipped it where it was broke and TADA! nobody even knew it was there and it grew back just fine when she molted it out

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

Hi. Yes, MikeyTN -- sounds like it'll hurt and Pritti will be super mad pissed at me if I do yank it. But I'll do whatever is best for him. I hate to towel him but he won't let me look at the base without my giving up a pound of flesh (ok, well maybe a 1/2 ouce of finger flesh).

Danny, I hope the snipping will work out instead of the yanking. In the meantime, I might try the stragegy of taking him in shower. He likes it once he's wet and it might be easier to get him to let me see it before he gets his high-style warm blow dry.

 

[MonicaMc]

If it's not a blood feather (and you can tell if a feather is a blood feather or not by looking a the quill), you might want to consider pulling it.

If it's a mature feather that split (my assumption), then you can either ignore it and Pritti will take care of it on his own, or you can snip it at the break and wait for the rest to molt out. This would be my suggestion, if it bugs you! I've had birds who have broken tail and flight feathers so that they hang out at odd feathers, and I usually finished breaking them or snipped them at the break.

 

[Pedro]

Pritti has a broken tail feather, but still attached. The I noticed it sticking out perpendicular to his other tail feathers a couple of days ago. So it's the wole feather and is cracked about .25 of an inch from his skin. He's been working on trying to get it out but it's not budging. I'm hoping he won't chew it off where the break is, which could start bleeding if there is blood in the shaft. He won't let me look at it, but will let me touch it and I gave it a slight tug at the base and it's firmly in there. So I straightened it out so it won't get caught on anything.

Do you think I should just leave it alone? or -- Do you think I should towel him and snip it off if it doesn't look like a blood feather? Do you think the whole thing should be removed.

Thanks.

If there is no blood coming from the crack then it'a an old feather & yes should either be clipped off at the crack or the whole feather pulled out. I prefer to pull them out. Being an old feather it should come out rather easily & a new feather will grow in 6 weeks.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Under no circumstances would I recommend to PULL it at this point. ONLY if it was bleeding profusely, which it isn't.

You can take scissors and cut right at the break. It it broke and didn't bleed, all should be fine, and when you cut it, the crooked feather will no longer bother him (and you). He will replace it when he goes through a molt.

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

THANKS. will snip it at crack if he decides to let me. poor boy is having long weird molt too.

 

[MikeyTN]

Sometimes it is best to yank it! I've had birds that will chew them down to the stub to the point it will never fall out during molt. I've had to had that done on Willie at the vet cause I had no one else that was willing to hold him down for me. She pulled out 6 of them that was chewed all the way down, they grew back nicely. During his molt, they never fall out! We waited for several years before I had a vet that was willing to do that for me.

 

[Supriya]

I totally agree with wendy,pulling the feather wud rather infuriate the bird and scare him and eventually lead a huge bite back as a revenge. getting it clipped with scissors is a better idea

 

[patch]

I don't feel comfortable doing these procedures myself so I would take my bird to a vet if he had this problem. I love my bird and I would do anything for him but doing something that would make him bleed would make me so anxious.

 

[MikeyTN]

I totally agree with wendy,pulling the feather wud rather infuriate the bird and scare him and eventually lead a huge bite back as a revenge. getting it clipped with scissors is a better idea

YEs it can infuriate the bird, BUT what IF it was a blood feather? Are you going to worry about infuriating the bird then? Cause by then it is a life or death situation!

 

[Pedro]

Actually pulling a feather correctly is no different to sticking a needle into their foot to take a blood sample for DNA. I pull feathers for a DNA sample, it's done so quick they don't even flinch.

If you don't have the stomach to pull a broken feather well it will fall out eventually.

In the mean time here is a link to identify a blood feather & what to do should the break.

Cockatiels, Blood Feathers, Broken Blood Feathers,How to Pull a Broken Blood Feather from a Bird, What is a Blood Feather

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

I spoke by phone with the tech at the a-vet's office. Right after that, I noticed -- guess what -- a loose tail feather. Apparently Pritti finally won the battle and he got it severed at the crack, which now leaves about a quarter inch sticking out of the skin, from the quick look he'll let me have. I don't see it being a blood feather. So, I'll be bringing him to a-vet to get hime to take a peek. Since Pritti is going through a tough and long molt, I want to see if it's old or newer. The separated part looks to me like a bright full-color feather, but not blood, but it might be too short and sharp to leave in now.

Thanks for the link Pedro.

 

[turquoisecheek]

Try nail clippers! They seem to work better than scissors since they cut the whole thing off at once instead of side to side. This happens more often than you think, and will probably happen again. Let us know how it goes

 

[MikeyTN]

I spoke by phone with the tech at the a-vet's office. Right after that, I noticed -- guess what -- a loose tail feather. Apparently Pritti finally won the battle and he got it severed at the crack, which now leaves about a quarter inch sticking out of the skin, from the quick look he'll let me have. I don't see it being a blood feather. So, I'll be bringing him to a-vet to get hime to take a peek. Since Pritti is going through a tough and long molt, I want to see if it's old or newer. The separated part looks to me like a bright full-color feather, but not blood, but it might be too short and sharp to leave in now.

Thanks for the link Pedro.

This goes back earlier in the post when I said sometimes it is best to just yank it cause if he gets it any shorter down to the skin, then you'll have a harder time to get it to come out cause it's not going to! Even during molt, I let Willie go through like that for several years, approx. 5-6 years before I had a vet that was willing to yank it out for me. If it was one of my smaller birds, I would of done it long ago myself....