reeb
New member
- Oct 23, 2017
- 568
- 85
- Parrots
- 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, this might be a long-ish post because I want to get as much detail in as possible!
Berry’s wings were clipped as a baby (the breeder did it without asking me), leaving only four of her longest flight feathers. So far, since I brought her home in October 2017, she has molted a couple of times and has grown back around 50% of her wing feathers, except for the middle section on both wings. Here is a slightly blurry image of her wings from a few weeks ago (she was really excited to see me and flapping like crazy so I tried to capture the moment haha), and there hasn’t been a change since then, she has just molted the longest flight feathers again since then.
So she has actually molted her longest flight feathers twice now, and her inside feathers (closest to her body) at least once, but has not molted these middlemost feathers at all yet.
I know staggered molting is normal, but should I be concerned since she’s molting again and hasn’t lost any of these cut feathers yet? What are your experiences with cockatiel molting patterns, or even your other parrots? I’ve never had a bird with clipped wings, so I’ve never really taken note of budgie molting patterns, for instance.
She is flying really, really well despite not having these feathers. She does dips, turns, and gets a lot of height - she’s just a little clumsy on landing sometimes!
Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!
Berry’s wings were clipped as a baby (the breeder did it without asking me), leaving only four of her longest flight feathers. So far, since I brought her home in October 2017, she has molted a couple of times and has grown back around 50% of her wing feathers, except for the middle section on both wings. Here is a slightly blurry image of her wings from a few weeks ago (she was really excited to see me and flapping like crazy so I tried to capture the moment haha), and there hasn’t been a change since then, she has just molted the longest flight feathers again since then.

So she has actually molted her longest flight feathers twice now, and her inside feathers (closest to her body) at least once, but has not molted these middlemost feathers at all yet.
I know staggered molting is normal, but should I be concerned since she’s molting again and hasn’t lost any of these cut feathers yet? What are your experiences with cockatiel molting patterns, or even your other parrots? I’ve never had a bird with clipped wings, so I’ve never really taken note of budgie molting patterns, for instance.
She is flying really, really well despite not having these feathers. She does dips, turns, and gets a lot of height - she’s just a little clumsy on landing sometimes!
Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!
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