PLEASE HELP! did my bird break a blood feather??

[Safamirza🤍]

Hello! I have a 6-7 month old male cockatiel named Kiko.

Kiko was sitting on top of his cage and I closed a door in front of him too hard and there was a mop behind the door which fell and it spooked Kiko, and he flew down from his cage.

Then when my brother picked him up, Kiko shaked his body and a drop of blood was on my brothers hand. So we quickly checked where he was bleeding from and there was a little bit of blood on his right wing. (Btw: everytime he gets a broken blood feather it’s always on this right wing, he just recently broke one a week ago which we had to get pulled out.)

So, I don’t seem to see any blood gushing out or active bleeding, but when he did open his wing when stretching, I saw a tiny bit of fresh blood in the wing. Is this a broken blood feather or an injury? What should I do? When he stretched his wing I saw a little shaft which I don’t know if it was broken, but there was a tiny bit of blood on it.

When he flew from his cage he did not hit anything or land badly, so I don’t know HOW it can be an injury. I’m also confused because when he first ever broke a blood feather, there was ALOT of blood. Like my brothers chest had blood on it and it was bad.

I haven’t opened his wing to examine it because I have no idea how and I don’t want to hurt him. Should I keep examining him and let it be for now or do something immediately? The first thing I wanted to do was put septic powder to stop the bleeding but there is no active bleeding to stop.

PLEASE someone tell me what to do I’m very confused.

 

[Safamirza🤍]

Hello! I have a 6-7 month old male cockatiel named Kiko.

Kiko was sitting on top of his cage and I closed a door in front of him too hard and there was a mop behind the door which fell and it spooked Kiko, and he flew down from his cage.

Then when my brother picked him up, Kiko shaked his body and a drop of blood was on my brothers hand. So we quickly checked where he was bleeding from and there was a little bit of blood on his right wing. (Btw: everytime he gets a broken blood feather it’s always on this right wing, he just recently broke one a week ago which we had to get pulled out.)

So, I don’t seem to see any blood gushing out or active bleeding, but when he did open his wing when stretching, I saw a tiny bit of fresh blood in the wing. Is this a broken blood feather or an injury? What should I do? When he stretched his wing I saw a little shaft which I don’t know if it was broken, but there was a tiny bit of blood on it.

When he flew from his cage he did not hit anything or land badly, so I don’t know HOW it can be an injury. I’m also confused because when he first ever broke a blood feather, there was ALOT of blood. Like my brothers chest had blood on it and it was bad.

I haven’t opened his wing to examine it because I have no idea how and I don’t want to hurt him. Should I keep examining him and let it be for now or do something immediately? The first thing I wanted to do was put septic powder to stop the bleeding but there is no active bleeding to stop.

PLEASE someone tell me what to do I’m very confused.

UPDATE: it has been around 15 min and he just stretched open the wing, and again, I see no active bleeding anywhere. I’m so confused

 

[Safamirza🤍]

UPDATE: it has been around 15 min and he just stretched open the wing, and again, I see no active bleeding anywhere. I’m so confused

I don’t know what to do with this issue of Kiko’s. He’s so harsh on his feathers and he has broken around 3 blood feathers within 5 months. The state of his tail is also VERY poor. He never lets new feathers grow on his tail and always breaks them off. I have been told that this could develop into a plucking problem in the future and I don’t know how to stop this. I try my best to distract him with toys and lots of play time. He’s out of his cage for the whole day until around 9pm when he goes to bed. I absolutely have no idea on what to do about this problem of Kiko’s.

 

[Cottonoid]

It's so scary to see blood, isn't it!!! I went through the same thing a couple weeks ago - found blood that was mostly dry, and by the time I'd posted here Cotton cleaned it up himself already. I don't know for sure if he broke a blood feather this time, but I don't think it's too unusual that at his age he's kinda bashing them a bit.

I can't remember, does he fly pretty well? Like, will he fly across the room and land where he wants to? I wonder if maybe doing some recall training - like your brother holds Kiko in front of you, and you hold a treat, then you say "Kiko, come here!" and see if he'll step over to you. Once he figures out the game, you can start moving further apart until he's flying TO you from all over. My son and his girlfriend said their cockatiel got much better at flying once they made it a game with him. Maybe that might help, if part of his problem is just being a teeny bit clumsy still?

 

[NancieG]

It is scary to feel so helpless with our birds. I am praying Kiko is doing okay for you right now. Blood feathers are tricky and can be dangerous.

When one of my flock gets stressed about something, or not feeling well they tend to act out most of the time by plucking. I try and determine what I have changed around them, if I added a new food, or how their environment altered in anyway. Most birds do not like change.

Not sure if this will help but I have a rescue Macaw that was abused and picks continually. I found a preening spray from "Wild Harvest" called Healthy Molt relief. It's a preen gland oil. I have tried everything and this is the only spray that stops her from plucking. In addition her back gets fire hot from skin irritation and it cools her down. I wish Kiko well he's lucky he has you to care.

 

[Safamirza🤍]

It's so scary to see blood, isn't it!!! I went through the same thing a couple weeks ago - found blood that was mostly dry, and by the time I'd posted here Cotton cleaned it up himself already. I don't know for sure if he broke a blood feather this time, but I don't think it's too unusual that at his age he's kinda bashing them a bit.

I can't remember, does he fly pretty well? Like, will he fly across the room and land where he wants to? I wonder if maybe doing some recall training - like your brother holds Kiko in front of you, and you hold a treat, then you say "Kiko, come here!" and see if he'll step over to you. Once he figures out the game, you can start moving further apart until he's flying TO you from all over. My son and his girlfriend said their cockatiel got much better at flying once they made it a game with him. Maybe that might help, if part of his problem is just being a teeny bit clumsy still?

I don’t think that he has the confidence to fly from one end of the room to the other yet and his low confidence has a lot to do with the fact that he’s clipped. I was thinking about some proper recall training and exercising Kiko more these coming 2 months because I don’t have any school (summer holidays!) and when he molts and gets his flight feathers back I hope he becomes more confident and a better flyer. As for landing, his landings are OKAY. Sometimes he will fall and land badly.

 

[Safamirza🤍]

It is scary to feel so helpless with our birds. I am praying Kiko is doing okay for you right now. Blood feathers are tricky and can be dangerous.

When one of my flock gets stressed about something, or not feeling well they tend to act out most of the time by plucking. I try and determine what I have changed around them, if I added a new food, or how their environment altered in anyway. Most birds do not like change.

Not sure if this will help but I have a rescue Macaw that was abused and picks continually. I found a preening spray from "Wild Harvest" called Healthy Molt relief. It's a preen gland oil. I have tried everything and this is the only spray that stops her from plucking. In addition her back gets fire hot from skin irritation and it cools her down. I wish Kiko well he's lucky he has you to care.

I will look into the spray, I’ve never heard about it before! He is doing a lot better now. I’m still confused as to what the bleeding was all about because if he broke a blood feather badly then there should have been active bleeding, but he bled a little bit and then it stopped and dried on it’s own. He did become a little quite after this incident but later at night became normal chattering Kiko again and went to bed after having dinner hopefully he’s completely back to being normal by tomorrow morning.

 

[wrench13]

Runaway bleeding occurs when the feather shaft is not fully removed from the growth follicle, acting like a faucet for blood. If he yanked out the complete feather, there might only be a drop or 2 before the follicle seals up.