Has anyone heard of this happening?

[sammiesue]

One week ago the temperature outside had warmed up enough to put my two Senegal parrots outside in the aviary. They had been outside for most of the day when all of the sudden I hear a terrible noise coming from the aviary. I run outside and find the oldest bird Buddy (15yrs) on his back flapping around on the ground screaming. I rush to pick him up he bites me pretty bad and I am freaking out thinking an animal attacked him. The younger Senegal, Sammie is just looking on calmly. I get Buddy inside and start looking him over. Im so scared of what I will find. I see that he is bleeding from his ear hole. I can't find any puncture wounds, any scratches, just blood coming from his ear. I put him in the cage and I am so confused! I'm so worried about him but he starts eating!
Then my boyfriend comes home and he tells me I should just leave him alone. I watch him throughout the night and I'm researching like crazy on the internet what it could possibly be. I also notice that night that he won't close his beak. Now I assume he's got some terrible illness and he's about to die. What was strange was that his behavior was pretty normal in regards to eating and talking. The next day I went to work and was thinking over and over what could possibly be wrong with him. I come home and his beak is still open so I decide to take him out and look him over again. I start looking at his ear again and notice there's something inside of it. I try getting it with my finger but I can't get it. I was going to towel him but I was so worried about stressing him out so I get my tweezers thinking there's no way in hell that he'll let me get near him with a foreign object. Amazingly he doesn't budge and I'm able to pull the thing out if his ear. Well it's a feather! It's covered in clotted bood and puss. I can't believe it but in about an hour his beak closes and now a week later he is completely normal. I just can't believe it but I guess when he was outside the feather punctured his ear causing him to fall and scream on the ground. It seems so crazy to me so I'm wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else's bird.

 

[Mayden]

I know you said he seems fine now, but I think a vet visit is so important here. Bleeding from any orifice is a huge 'vets... now' response with birds. It could be something more sinister that needs looking at. You almost lost your bird because of something that was abnormal - so please go get it checked out.

It's never happened to me and if it did I'd take my babies straight to the avian vet, their lives are so delicate and fragile. With pus, your baby will probably need some form of flush and antibiotics to ensure no infection festers and to see if the feather caused the bleeding, or did something else and the feather get stuck in the blood?

Glad to hear your bird appears to be feeling better, my heart sank when reading this.

 

[SpotsandSally]

It's possible that the feather was in his ear, and he moved so it cut him, it freaked him out causing him to fall, and now an infection started where it cut.
But... Even if that's true, it still means there's an infection in his ear.
But it's possible to was something completely different.
I say a vet check is in order.

 

[sammiesue]

Yes of course I should add that he checked out at the vet 3 days ago and the vet saw no sign of trauma and no sign of infection. There's was no discharge, no behavior change, it's like it never happened. Thanks for the concern! I didn't post the story for medical advice but more so because I could not find another story of a feather puncturing a parrot ear anywhere! I'm guessing this just doesn't happen and was a freak accident.

 

[JamesC]

My previous Senegal used to scratch herself with the ends of her feathers. While preening, she would pop one off then hold it in a foot and work it back and forth on her head. I suppose it would have been possible for her to stick it into an ear. But feathers are tough to break off. Kind of odd that a small piece of one could have gotten in there.

Glad that the bird is doing well after the experience.

 

[MonicaMc]

Someone else took their bird in to a vet for not acting right and found a bug inside the ear...