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Sudden loss of tail feathers

Duel

Walking the driveway
Joined
11/6/18
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177
This morning I had snick on my shoulders while preparing breakfast for myself and since he gets a little too curious about what I'm eating and tries to take a bite from it even if its not healthy for him. I was reaching for him to put him into his cage and he went to my back where its harder to reach him. I always gently put my hand around him and he lifts his legs up and puts them onto my hand but this time he suddenly moved before I closed my hand and ended up holding his feathers then he suddenly flew. This lead to a few feathers coming off and I was surprised how it happened because I was barely using any force at all as I could've swore the feathers could've easily just slipped out instead. Snick made a small sound and flew to my shoulder and surprisingly he kept grinding his beak a few times before preening his tail. Right away I checked if there's any bleeding at all but there wasn't. I then checked his feathers that came off and they all seemed to be empty with no blood flowing in them. I even wiped my finger at the edge of them all to see if there was any blood but there wasn't any at all. I kept watching him very closely ready to take him to the hospital the moment I see a drop of blood but after an hour all what happened was that he did some preening and kept grinding his beak. I've already made an appointment with the vet but I think that since he's recently started molting again I was lucky and happened to be holding dead feathers that were already close to coming off. Here's a video of him I happened to take the day before and a picture of him later that day at night. He seems to be well without any injuries so far but will still take him to the vet anyways.

 

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TikkiTembo

Rollerblading along the road
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Chelsea
I've heard of birds releasing tail feathers when they are avoiding being grabbed by the tail.
 

Beasley

Rollerblading along the road
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Maggie Beasley
Yes, I’ve seen the tail feather dropping first hand at a bird store, new tiels came in and were spooked being put into their cages for the first time. It’s pretty alarming to see! Sounds like this was just a natural biological response.
 

Duel

Walking the driveway
Joined
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177
I've heard of birds releasing tail feathers when they are avoiding being grabbed by the tail.
But wouldn't there be some blood coming off the feathers in those cases? My bird's were completely dry and I was holding his feathers lightly enough to where it would easily slide out of my hand if he pulls.
 

Zara

♥❀Livin´ in Lovebird Land❀☼
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But wouldn't there be some blood coming off the feathers in those cases?
No.
When a new feather grows it has a large blood supply. We call them blood feathers, or pin feathers. Once the feather has fully grown and the sheath has been removed by the bird, you will see the shaft is now white, meaning there is not a huge blood supply flowing anymore.
This is also why when we have birds breaking an older flight feather, it usually does not need to be removed like blood feathers tend to.

I hope Snick regains his tail during his moult :)
 

Duel

Walking the driveway
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Oh yeah side question: the he responded to the sound of water in the video is the same way he responds to me when I say his name or "good". What do you guys make of that? He also responds like that if its any of my sibblings saying that.
 

Zara

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Oh yeah side question: the he responded to the sound of water in the video is the same way he responds to me when I say his name or "good". What do you guys make of that? He also responds like that if its any of my sibblings saying that.
When I say ¨Sydney!¨ to him he does his little ¨Pip-ew!¨ - it seems to be a response to our ¨call¨ :)
 
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