Feather duster budgies and quality of life

[birdmom123]

Hi all! I was buying a flight cage that I found on Facebook marketplace from a family that has a lot of budgies in a variety of cages and aviaries. When I was there, I noticed that their English budgies were separated into two cages. In the first cage was a male/female bonded pair, along with two seven month old "babies." I will circle back to these guys in a second. In the second cage we're about 5 or 6 other babies from the same mating pair, between 4 and 5 months old, which all looked normal for their age and apparently healthy.

Okay, now back to these two babies in the first cage with the parents. They were extremely large for their age, and looked even bigger than the parents. And they had extremely long, thick, almost curled feathers, which swept down and over their feet and covered pretty much the entire face except for the beak and cere. After doing some research, they look EXACTLY like feather duster English budgies. From what I did read it seems like a lot of breeders often cull these budgies as babies, and there is not a lot of information out there due to the negative stigma surrounding them? (Please correct me if I'm wrong) From what it sounds like though, these guys don't seem to live very long due to nutritional deficiencies and mobility issues from all the feathers. The family said that although they eat and drink amazingly, they can't fly and do have trouble moving around.

Just from what I found online, I told them for now to give more calcium supplementation since their feathers don't stop growing and take calcium away from their bodies, and that a pellet diet would probably be best for them versus the seed diet they are currently on, and that they will probably need regular beak and feather trimming for the rest of their lives. It's an older lady that owns and takes care of the birds, and she said she really cares about them but wasn't sure how to help, so I said I would try and gather more advice and pass it along to her son so they could better their husbandry for however much time these little birds have left.

Anyways, does anyone on here have experience with feather dusters, or have recommendations on accommodations that can be made for them? As well as how to trim the overgrown feathers? Thank you so much in advance, I really appreciate it!

 

[Keet_Krazy]

I did a lot of research into feather dusters a few years ago, just for my personal curiosity.
One conclusion I came too, which isn't particularly well known and some people don't agree I think, is that what causes feather dusters is a mutation just like all the colours. The genetics could be compared to Spangled budgies, I found this info here. I would strongly suggest to these people not to breed the parents again (and potentially their offspring).
I agree that a pellet diet would be one of the wisest options for them. Their feathers will never stop growing (They won't end up with mile long feathers though cause they will still moult like other birds ), but this also means a high protein diet would probably be beneficial. Feathers are made of protein. Something I concluded on my own is having baby parrot formula on hand for supplementing would also be a good idea, a lot of the info I read was basically saying these birds die not long after weaning when their parents are no longer providing them with a good endless diet.
The above link there is a comment somewhere, which I am probably not going to be able to find, that said with proper care they had some feather dusters live to 6 years old I think it was. Which for an English budgies (as far as I am aware feather duster are only English budgies) is a pretty "average" age.
One last thing for now is Feather Duster are immunocompromised, due to so much of their bodies' resources being put toward their feathers they will likely be more susceptible to illness.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I did a lot of research into feather dusters a few years ago, just for my personal curiosity.
One conclusion I came too, which isn't particularly well known and some people don't agree I think, is that what causes feather dusters is a mutation just like all the colours. The genetics could be compared to Spangled budgies, I found this info here. I would strongly suggest to these people not to breed the parents again (and potentially their offspring).
I agree that a pellet diet would be one of the wisest options for them. Their feathers will never stop growing (They won't end up with mile long feathers though cause they will still moult like other birds ), but this also means a high protein diet would probably be beneficial. Feathers are made of protein. Something I concluded on my own is having baby parrot formula on hand for supplementing would also be a good idea, a lot of the info I read was basically saying these birds die not long after weaning when their parents are no longer providing them with a good endless diet.
The above link there is a comment somewhere, which I am probably not going to be able to find, that said with proper care they had some feather dusters live to 6 years old I think it was. Which for an English budgies (as far as I am aware feather duster are only English budgies) is a pretty "average" age.
One last thing for now is Feather Duster are immunocompromised, due to so much of their bodies' resources being put toward their feathers they will likely be more susceptible to illness.

This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Tashaaa]

I had a prolific pair of budgies that gave me a bunch of babies! Then one year, they had not one, but 2 feather dusters babies (after raising these young, the parents were put into my flock aviary, never to breed again.), this was back in the '90's, where there was VERY LITTLE info on them! Their quality of life was not the greatest at all. they would not play. they just sat on the lower perches, chirping like babies. One lived for 10 months, the other lived until it was a year old - but never left the baby stage... He couldn't eat on his own. Just begged his parents for food his whole little life.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I had a prolific pair of budgies that gave me a bunch of babies! Then one year, they had not one, but 2 feather dusters babies (after raising these young, the parents were put into my flock aviary, never to breed again.), this was back in the '90's, where there was VERY LITTLE info on them! Their quality of life was not the greatest at all. they would not play. they just sat on the lower perches, chirping like babies. One lived for 10 months, the other lived until it was a year old - but never left the baby stage... He couldn't eat on his own. Just begged his parents for food his whole little life.

Very sad.

 

[Shelleyb1967]

I did a lot of research into feather dusters a few years ago, just for my personal curiosity.
One conclusion I came too, which isn't particularly well known and some people don't agree I think, is that what causes feather dusters is a mutation just like all the colours. The genetics could be compared to Spangled budgies, I found this info here. I would strongly suggest to these people not to breed the parents again (and potentially their offspring).
I agree that a pellet diet would be one of the wisest options for them. Their feathers will never stop growing (They won't end up with mile long feathers though cause they will still moult like other birds ), but this also means a high protein diet would probably be beneficial. Feathers are made of protein. Something I concluded on my own is having baby parrot formula on hand for supplementing would also be a good idea, a lot of the info I read was basically saying these birds die not long after weaning when their parents are no longer providing them with a good endless diet.
The above link there is a comment somewhere, which I am probably not going to be able to find, that said with proper care they had some feather dusters live to 6 years old I think it was. Which for an English budgies (as far as I am aware feather duster are only English budgies) is a pretty "average" age.
One last thing for now is Feather Duster are immunocompromised, due to so much of their bodies' resources being put toward their feathers they will likely be more susceptible to illness.

Last week I lost my beloved parakeet whom I fully believe had feather duster syndrome or at least a form of it. She showed 90% of the symptoms except for the continuous growth of feathers.
She did not have eyeballs, did not sound like a normal parakeet, slept in her food bowl to be closer to it, did not climb in her cage, when I first got her she was so emaciated.

I do believe because of the diet I had her on is why I was able to keep her alive for 2 weeks shy of two years.

One of my questions is do you think there are different degrees of this syndrome? Such as mild to severe?