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Is this keratim sheaths?

clarousel

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Hello everyone,

I'm doing Preeno's weekly cage clean and noticed a lot of small black dots. They're not round or ball like so I can't imagine they're eggs (hopefully not). Are these the black tips of the keratin sheaths? He is currently moulting.

I've never noticed this before so I'm a little freaked out!

20201122_125957.jpg
 

Shezbug

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Do they crumble into smaller bits when you crush them between your fingers? They all look fairly uniform in size and shape which has me a little baffled.
I never see black bits from Squeak when he gets new feathers in but with Burt's huge wings everything gets blown out of Squeaks cage onto the floor before I get to it to clean it in the morning so the vac gets it all without me paying it too much attention, Burt leaves some ripper chunks of black stuff when he is growing new feathers in.
 

clarousel

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Do they crumble into smaller bits when you crush them between your fingers? They all look fairly uniform in size and shape which has me a little baffled.
I never see black bits from Squeak when he gets new feathers in but with Burt's huge wings everything gets blown out of Squeaks cage onto the floor before I get to it to clean it in the morning so the vac gets it all without me paying it too much attention, Burt leaves some ripper chunks of black stuff when he is growing new feathers in.
I couldnt tell if they crumbled but it did look like a 'cap'. Some of them were whitish on the edge.

Preeno has gone through a few moults but I've never seen these black things before!
 

clarousel

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Omg could it be baby cockroach droppings?! Just found one in the cage as I was washing it. I'm so freaked out now!!
 

Shezbug

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Yeah they just look too uniform to me for them to be random bits of preened new feather. Check if there is any of them in your seeds.
 

Shezbug

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Omg could it be baby cockroach droppings?! Just found one in the cage as I was washing it. I'm so freaked out now!!
I have no idea what baby roach droppings look like. The fact that they all look about the same size and shape makes me think they are nothing to do with new feathers.
 

clarousel

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Argh we've recently been getting quite a few roaches coming into the house from the nearby trees. I'm really scared of them so hopefully I won't see anymore of them in the cage :depressed:

Will up the cage cleaning! Thanks Shezbug!
 

Zara

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They make traps for cockroaches? @Zara

I found a pantry mouth trap that was sticky and bird safe after that horrible moth invasion I had. After living through THAT deep clean, if I see a flutter of an insect I put one of those out.

Best of luck @clarousel
 
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