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Urgent Feather growing through old feather shaft???

Jackorama

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10/19/21
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Jacqueline Penford
Hi, I have noticed what looks like a shaft of an old feather with a new feather growing inside and coming out the end of it. There is one on both wings. We never had Boomer clipped, but know he was clipped at least once before we got him. We were at the vet for a check-up on May 5, 2022 and the vet didn't mention anything. I noticed the empty shafts after and noticed the new feathers growing out the bottom of them last week. The shafts are hard. To me, this doesn't look right. Should I be worried about this? DSCN1742.JPG
 
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Zara

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When a new feather grows, it is first wrapped in a keratin sheath ( what you are calling the shaft) and called a pin feather. As it grows, our birds will eventually preen these ¨pin feathers¨ to remove the keratin sheath opening up the feather to reveal the vane, leaving behind only a small part of the keratin which will be the shaft/quill (calamus).

Looks like there´s still some of the sheath there to be preened off. Sometimes it is hard, so offering a bath will help to soften it to make preening easier.
 
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