Blood feather

[Lady507]

Hello, I wanted to ask anyone if they have ever had an experience with blood feathers. I have a lovebird and quaker with one. the lovebird while preening broke one on her tail a week ago. The quaker broke one on her neck today. Both birds have me extremely worried in fear that they will reinjure it and bleed out. I want to take them to the vet but around here it costs 50-70 for a consult only and then they will tell us the price for taking out the feather. The price is too much and it would be 2 birds now and I could end up paying around 300-500 for 2 feathers. Either way, my parents agree its to much and aren't going to pay for it. So I wanted to know if anyone knows what I can do for the birds. Thank you in advance!

 

[Zoomie]

This is what I do: restrain the bird gently, wrapped in a towel if you need to. (I raise canaries; they are too small to wrap in a towel, you would not be able to find them in there!). Get a little cornstarch to have handy and a clean cotton ball. Grasp the shaft of the feather close to the skin and tug it out in the direction of the growth of the feather. It's painful for the bird, so try and keep them still. Use the cornstarch as a blood stop. Use gentle pressure with the cotton ball. After the bleeding stops, just tell them you're sorry and put them back in the cage and keep a close eye.

One of my canary hens had a blood feather she kept damaging. I tried just stopping the blood flow and leaving it be but somehow it kept getting injured so I had no choice but to pull it out. The new feather came in perfect and she is fine now. I hope you don't have any problems with this method, this is just what I do in a similar situation.

 

[Lady507]

Thank you, I'll try this and hopefully will work thank you again for your help and I'll answer when I do it.

 

[marinagarita]

Yes, pulling a blood feather is what you should do. It's not as hard as it might seem. You can also look up a video on Youtube, if you'd like a good visual. Good luck!!

 

[Lady507]

Hey, I wanted to let you know I haven't been able to do it which is why I didn't answer back. The problem was that when I was going to do it I couldn't find it cause the lovebird had already cleaned herself up. Since it's in her tail the blood feather is all the way at the end and I looked for it for a while I didn't find it. I'm waiting for when she bleeds again to do it quickly before she cleans up. Once she bleeds I can look for the bleeding feather and pluck it out. I just wanted to explain why it is I haven't answered. I'd rather wait for her to rebleed then accidently taking out the wrong feather and then having 2 blood feathers to worry about. Thank you for waiting and being patient but I promise you that the moment I take it out I would make another post on it and let you know how she is doing. The quaker has it on her neck and won't let me even get close to it so I decided as long as it didn't become life threatening then I would leave it. Again thanks for the patience and I would let you know how they are doing.