Nail cut too short

cockatielponyo

New member
Apr 14, 2019
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Parrots
Male white face cinnamon pearl cockatiel
Hi,

So I have a small cockatiel and normally I had a vet cut his nails and wings but this time my uncle decided to and did one of the nails just a bit too short. There was a little bit of blood and he doesn't seem to be bleeding now but I can't honestly tell and other sites seem to say it won't stop bleeding on its own and he'll bleed to death. He's also pretty shaken up by the whole thing and puffed up and he's standing on one foot. He won't eat millets either which he usually loves.

I just wanted to know if i should be more concerned about his nail and what more I can do to get him to relax.
 
Welcome to the forum!

If your worried about bleeding put some cornstarch/cornflour on his nail. That should stop the bleeding. Until he calms down, keep him in his cage in a quiet environment. He should be his normal self in a hour or so.
 
I think he will be fine. It's a silly old wives tale that it won't stop bleeding and they will bleed to death. Hear that about blood feathers too. The clotting power of blood is in the blood itself, not in the skin. That analagy to a spigot makes me laugh. A drop of blood sitting on a counter will clot even.



There are plenty of birds out there who are even missing toes from botched nail clipping, many never see a vet and they are fine. My aunt had a cockatiel many years ago and thought a good way to do the nails was to pull the foot thru the bars of the cage and then clip. Thats how KC lost his toe. He survived that, but died years later... she. Laimed it was because his cage was on the porch one day when she cleaned the chicken coop and that killed him, but the coop was nowhere near the house. Even as a kid I didn't think it made sense. But that is neither here nor there; my point is that your bird will be fine. :)



From phone
 
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Welcome to the forum!

If your worried about bleeding put some cornstarch/cornflour on his nail. That should stop the bleeding. Until he calms down, keep him in his cage in a quiet environment. He should be his normal self in a hour or so.

Thank you! I gave him some space for now and he still seems nervous despite it being a few but I'm just going to let him sleep tonight and see how he is in the morning.
 
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I think he will be fine. It's a silly old wives tale that it won't stop bleeding and they will bleed to death. Hear that about blood feathers too. The clotting power of blood is in the blood itself, not in the skin. That analagy to a spigot makes me laugh. A drop of blood sitting on a counter will clot even.



There are plenty of birds out there who are even missing toes from botched nail clipping, many never see a vet and they are fine. My aunt had a cockatiel many years ago and thought a good way to do the nails was to pull the foot thru the bars of the cage and then clip. Thats how KC lost his toe. He survived that, but died years later... she. Laimed it was because his cage was on the porch one day when she cleaned the chicken coop and that killed him, but the coop was nowhere near the house. Even as a kid I didn't think it made sense. But that is neither here nor there; my point is that your bird will be fine. :)



From phone

Woah that's...a wild tale. But thank you so much, that put me at ease. I've had him for nearly a year now and while he is very reckless and clumsy, he's pretty good at staying away from injuries so this was a first, even if it was tiny. hence why searching it up and reading he could bleed out only made me panic, but then again you search any symptom for even a mild cough and it jumps to cancer so...

anyhow, thank you!!
 
Every type of bleeding that does not stop on its own will eventually kill the owner of the bloodvessels.


If a wound clots perfectly by itself...no worries about it.
(Birds usually clot very fast and very well)


That warning goes around because you really *do* need to keep an eye on things.
Ingore a wound and your bird may die (or may not, but that is a gamble few people want to take).


My one grey bit the other one deep in the toe, and no way it would stop bleeding, no matter what I tried (the starch was just flushed away by the outpouring blood, keeping pressure on it was not enough so I ended up at the CAV to get a pressurebandage on it with enough extra material to keep the bird busy till the natural clottingprocess would be complete and maybe some healing underway.
 
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Every type of bleeding that does not stop on its own will eventually kill the owner of the bloodvessels.


If a wound clots perfectly by itself...no worries about it.
(Birds usually clot very fast and very well)


That warning goes around because you really *do* need to keep an eye on things.
Ingore a wound and your bird may die (or may not, but that is a gamble few people want to take).


My one grey bit the other one deep in the toe, and no way it would stop bleeding, no matter what I tried (the starch was just flushed away by the outpouring blood, keeping pressure on it was not enough so I ended up at the CAV to get a pressurebandage on it with enough extra material to keep the bird busy till the natural clottingprocess would be complete and maybe some healing underway.


Yeah, I have been keeping an eye on him and it seems to have clotted fine. He's just still very very skittish though and its been quite a few hours and he's still a poof ball. He's also not putting much weight on the foot so he's half teetering and doesn't have a good grip when he's switching perches. Should I still get his foot checked or will it be fine in a few days?
 
(just my opinion here!)

I always find the nonchelance when people advise to " easy and safely draw blood by clipping a nail" very cruel - because birds cannot get off their feet and will be in pain till it fully heals / the nail grows out enough it does not hurt every time it moves.

Drawing blood from a vein only hurts a few seconds and sometimes not at all versus putting the bird in a world of pain for at least a week.

Just try clipping your own toenail too short- you'll be in severe discomfort for days if not weeks (and we can sit down and take the shoes and load of) even if you did not cut into the flesh itself.
-

Your bird is not in danger of bleeding out, but that foot will be very sore for some time to come.
Usually these guys are tough as nails and hide any discomfort...so take that into consideration when they actually do show it!
(it must be really, really painfull)

It will heal- but it will take some time.
 
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Yeah I can imagine. That's why I want to make it more comfortable for him but thank you for the info. He's just such a tiny birdo and I cant help worry about him aha.
 
Yeah, you need a healthy-respect for the vessels in their toenails and especially blood-feathers, and you DO NEED TO WORRY about them clotting if they are cut too short and start bleeding, because THEY ABSOLUTELY CAN BLEED TO DEATH, ESPECIALLY A SMALL BIRD LIKE A COCKATIEL!!!

A Cockatiel can only lose about 3-4 teaspoons of blood before they bleed to death (a Budgie about 2 teaspoons), and it's quite possible that they won't clot on their own, and as for blood-feathers they are like a "spigot" a lot of the time, that's no joke, ask me how my own Cockatiel Duff knows...

The point is that if you clip a toenail too short and it starts to bleed it's not the end of the world, same for a blood-feather, but you always need to have either Qwik-Stop or Cornstarch WITH YOU BEFORE you trim anything...And if a toenail starts bleeding you just put a dab of Qwik-Stop or Cornstarch right on the end where it's bleeding...And for a blood-feather that is bleeding you do the same, but you also need to apply pressure over-top of the Qwik-Stop or Cornstarch with a clean cloth, and hold it for a few minutes that way before checking on it...And always have the stuff you need with you before you start anything like this..

It's not a joke at all, plenty of pet birds have died from bleeding toenails and especially from broken blood-feathers...It's not anything to freak-out about or panic about if you are prepared before you start clipping/trimming, but if you're not prepared it can very much become an emergency quickly...
 
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Yeah I kept an eye on him, and definitely will be keeping that in mind for the future. Thankfully though the little fella is alright, started moving around again yesterday and a bit more back to his chirpy attention demanding self.
 

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