Broken tail feathers

[FeraeNaturae]

Well we got "Diego" home (we changed his name), and his tail feathers are all broken. The guy we got him from put him in the medium dog crate carrier we got for him. I got the broken peices off (carefully) but he barely has a tail now and the remainder of it is sharp and jagged. I feel so bad! Should I do anything else with it right now?

And of course here's a pic of him and the boyfriend (who he likes very much)!

 

[Birdbrain91]

Congrats on your new Macaw he is pretty. When I got my Sun Conure her tail feathers looked like what you described. Once I got her in a better cage and a better diet. They came back in a couple months. I don't know about Macaws as I just adopted one 2 months ago. Just make sure his cage has enough room for him to move around without hitting his tail feathers. Sounds like that's how they got damaged.

 

[Mekaisto]

Congratulations, he's beautiful
He'll moult them out naturally. Some people I know are in the practice of pulling out broken feathers (ouch!), but I do not, as I find it makes the new feathers grow oddly (a new feather uses old feathers to guide their growth)

Just make sure he doesn't try to do any big flights until his new feathers grow back.

 

[Chesphoto]

Congratulations, he's beautiful
He'll moult them out naturally. Some people I know are in the practice of pulling out broken feathers (ouch!), but I do not, as I find it makes the new feathers grow oddly (a new feather uses old feathers to guide their growth)

Just make sure he doesn't try to do any big flights until his new feathers grow back.

I'm no expert, but I have seen this with Skittles too. She had a few bad tail feathers. Over the months, she will pluck out one of the bad ones and a new takes its place.

Just give your bird a healthy diet and let nature take its course.

 

[MikeyTN]

Like it's been said, they will grow back eventually. Just let him do his own thing. He's beautiful!!!

 

[FreedomAndForgiven]

Don't worry those feathers will come back. They break during molt, if they are kept in to small of a cage or of course the main cause I see is that they play like crazy. Lucy finally grew here tail back after quite a while of really not having one. The whole reason was how hard she would play, swinging around and everything. Phoenix is the same way, and so is Gizmo who gets messed up feathers often because she is psycho when she plays lol.