lyrl
New member
I am wondering if there is anything I can do to help heal and prevent in the future a feather condition on one of my cockatiels.
He is eight months old. I think the store we bought him from over-clipped him: he couldn't glide or anything, just dropped like a stone. His adventuresome personality combined with typical young bird clumsiness resulted in a lot of broken wing and tail feathers.
They are now starting to come back, but there seems to be something wrong with the feathers: the barbs are twisted, so he can't lock them together when preening. I took a picture where you can see some of the tail feathers with this condition, and also a little on his left wing:
Here is a closeup of the condition on the tailfeathers:
I'm guessing this condition is caused by trauma to the feather follicle? Our other cockatiel is five years old, and I remember this happening to his longest flight feathers. After a few molts with this condition, those feathers stopped growing entirely, so he kinda has a "natural" mini-clip. That worries me with our new cockatiel, since it is happening to not just his longest wing feathers, but also shorter flight feathers and tailfeathers. It would be really upsetting if all of those follicles stopped making feathers!
Any information on what would cause this, or anything I can do to help it?
He is eight months old. I think the store we bought him from over-clipped him: he couldn't glide or anything, just dropped like a stone. His adventuresome personality combined with typical young bird clumsiness resulted in a lot of broken wing and tail feathers.
They are now starting to come back, but there seems to be something wrong with the feathers: the barbs are twisted, so he can't lock them together when preening. I took a picture where you can see some of the tail feathers with this condition, and also a little on his left wing:
Here is a closeup of the condition on the tailfeathers:
I'm guessing this condition is caused by trauma to the feather follicle? Our other cockatiel is five years old, and I remember this happening to his longest flight feathers. After a few molts with this condition, those feathers stopped growing entirely, so he kinda has a "natural" mini-clip. That worries me with our new cockatiel, since it is happening to not just his longest wing feathers, but also shorter flight feathers and tailfeathers. It would be really upsetting if all of those follicles stopped making feathers!
Any information on what would cause this, or anything I can do to help it?
Sterretjie had a lot of broken feathers and I thought it was because of what she was fed before I found her in my garden. She is still molting and feathers looks awesome now, so I really dont know what is causing your problem.
