Hello all, I have exhausted all possible avenues to try and figure out what is wrong with one of my canaries. The canary is a red agate canary. She lives in an indoor aviary with a crested canary and 4 gouldian finches. The other birds are all healthy, have excellent feather production and color. We got them all 2 years ago so age is approximately the same on all of them. We have no avian vets in our area but there are a few that are 2-3 hours away. I called EVERY vet in a 3 hour radius to see if they would see her. Some requested pictures, but they all declined to see her.
I'm hoping someone can give me some insight into what her issue is and how to remedy it or if we need to have her put down.
For diet, they have free access to Kaylor enriched seed mix (We mix canary and finch seed together) and they have daily access to fresh fruits and veggies, egg food, and millet strands. They have drinking and bath water. During moulting season we use Nekton BIO for their feather production.
So, the issue is that she has several spots where her feathers won't grow in correctly. The follicles are HUGE (like 1mm wide holes) and the feathers that come out of them look like giant blackheads. If we let the feathers grow, they grow curled and matte up into big balls. When we pull them out of the follicles they come right out with no resistance and leave gaping holes in her skin. She has 'pockets' of these on her sides (under wings) and on the back of her neck. She also has keratin masses on the tips of her 'shoulder area (like the top corner of wing closest to her face) These keratin masses are black and incredibly hard. When we excise them with tweezers she tends to bleed. Many times these keratin masses can be identified as the black base part of a dysfunctional feather, as described above.
I really hope someone has experience with this type of issue and can guide me in the correct direction. We have been pulling these out and excising the masses for a few months now but she does not seem to be improving. Not sure if it is hereditary or a lack of nutrients or what?
I'm hoping someone can give me some insight into what her issue is and how to remedy it or if we need to have her put down.
For diet, they have free access to Kaylor enriched seed mix (We mix canary and finch seed together) and they have daily access to fresh fruits and veggies, egg food, and millet strands. They have drinking and bath water. During moulting season we use Nekton BIO for their feather production.
So, the issue is that she has several spots where her feathers won't grow in correctly. The follicles are HUGE (like 1mm wide holes) and the feathers that come out of them look like giant blackheads. If we let the feathers grow, they grow curled and matte up into big balls. When we pull them out of the follicles they come right out with no resistance and leave gaping holes in her skin. She has 'pockets' of these on her sides (under wings) and on the back of her neck. She also has keratin masses on the tips of her 'shoulder area (like the top corner of wing closest to her face) These keratin masses are black and incredibly hard. When we excise them with tweezers she tends to bleed. Many times these keratin masses can be identified as the black base part of a dysfunctional feather, as described above.
I really hope someone has experience with this type of issue and can guide me in the correct direction. We have been pulling these out and excising the masses for a few months now but she does not seem to be improving. Not sure if it is hereditary or a lack of nutrients or what?
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