Feather Up Supplement

[katm89]

Hi all!
I was wondering if any of you have tried this supplement for feather regrowth and molting support. I have used it for a couple years and have had good success supporting my conure through his molt. My avian vet recently recommended stopping it and only giving vetomega oil, but my birds molt has gotten worse since stopping it. Anyone else have experience with Featherup?

 

[Mizzely]

What is your bird's normal diet outside of the supplement? The supplement has a lot of good things for feather growth so I'm not surprised it seems to help, especially if he isn't getting them otherwise

 

[katm89]

He eats Harrison’s and fruits/veggies

 

[Mizzely]

He may just need a bit more during molting then Did your vet say why he stopped recommending it?

 

[Sparkles!]

The trouble with feather supplements is when they’re really full of many vitamins as well as minerals. Micronutrients are easily overdosed, especially when you’re feeding an already enriched all inclusive pelleted diet- and you said you’re feeding Harrison’s, which is heavily fortified. And heavily fortified diets are good! But you don’t want to add additional minerals or fat soluble vitamins to a fortified diet. That feather up supplement contains a fair bit of copper, iron, and elemental zinc (amongst other things) and if consumed consistently enough by your bird can actually push their levels from therapeutic to harmful, and if consumed long enough- to toxic levels.

It’s best practice to not supplement a bird on a complete diet without first doing lab work to check for an actual insufficiency, so I understand why your vet told you to stop the supplement.

What you can do, is have your vet pull blood and serum and test your bird for any diet related deficiencies. If any are found, that specific deficiency can be fixed with the appropriate supplement.

 

[Ripshod]

I have to agree with the comments above.
With a healthy, balanced and supplemented diet like your bird is already on the only conceivable thing that could improve feather growth is possibly a little extra protein.
Before supplementing anything we should first find if there's a deficiency, and any reasonable vet would explain these deficiencies before recommending any supplements.

 

[katm89]

Awesome thanks for both your input. We ran a basic cbc and chem , but nothing to check minerals, electrolytes or iron. I will check in with the vet about that.