Strange skin growths on a female Cayuga

[Cayuga Lover]

Hi everyone,
One of my babies, Southpaw, has strange growths under her wings. To describe her, I’d say she’s a runt. She is two years old and by far the tiniest of all of our flock. She is so small that when she eats and her crop is full, she ends up at a 45 degree angle. She also has never really grown feathers under her wings. She preens often, but her back is always crusty with food and we give them big bowls of fresh water twice a day and a horse feeder large bowl as a pool from time to time. She does bathe, but her back is always still crusted with food. She is absolutely adorable and we love her to death!

Recently we noticed these growths under her wings. They feel and look like skin. Almost like skin tags but much bigger. Does anyone have any idea what these could be? Are they dangerous or painful? Is there something we can do to treat them?

 

[Cayuga Lover]

A picture of the other side:

 

[Isaac 0]

The yellow-ish pigmentation may be indicative of fat deposits due to a sedentary lifestyle, likely along with a high fatty/caloric intake diet. What is the bird being fed, and does her day consist of an adequate amount of exercise? Besides plain fat deposits, it could be the start of a benign/fatty tumor. Considering it's located on the wing, a xanthoma tumor maybe be possible.

 

[Cayuga Lover]

The yellow-ish pigmentation may be indicative of fat deposits due to a sedentary lifestyle, likely along with a high fatty/caloric intake diet. What is the bird being fed, and does her day consist of an adequate amount of exercise? Besides plain fat deposits, it could be the start of a benign/fatty tumor. Considering it's located on the wing, a xanthoma tumor maybe be possible.

View attachment 2468603

Her diet is Green Mountain organic feed, either layer or maintainer depending on what they need. For three birds, we give about 2.5 cups of food a day and they don’t eat it all. They also get frozen peas (probably too many), frozen blueberries, tomatoes once every week or two and grubblies (dried grub larvae). We might over feed the grubblies, but the rest is fairly healthy...we thought anyway. She gets exercise running around all day. We don’t free range them because we live in an area with a lot of predators, but her and her two female buddies to play and run around a lot. These are our “inside” ducks. We got Southpaw and her sister because we have a duck who is disabled and can’t walk as well as she should due to bad bumble foot as a baby. We couldn’t put her back out with our outside ducks because get attacked her, so we got her two buddies.

I’m sorry, that was a super long reply. We have dealt with fatty tumors on our dogs, so is it the same thing in that they are not harmful unless they impede movement? I don’t know anything about the other type of tumor you mentioned, but I’ll look it up. Is it malignant?

 

[Isaac 0]

Her diet is Green Mountain organic feed, either layer or maintainer depending on what they need. For three birds, we give about 2.5 cups of food a day and they don’t eat it all. They also get frozen peas (probably too many), frozen blueberries, tomatoes once every week or two and grubblies (dried grub larvae). We might over feed the grubblies, but the rest is fairly healthy...we thought anyway. She gets exercise running around all day. We don’t free range them because we live in an area with a lot of predators, but her and her two female buddies to play and run around a lot. These are our “inside” ducks. We got Southpaw and her sister because we have a duck who is disabled and can’t walk as well as she should due to bad bumble foot as a baby. We couldn’t put her back out with our outside ducks because get attacked her, so we got her two buddies.

I’m sorry, that was a super long reply. We have dealt with fatty tumors on our dogs, so is it the same thing in that they are not harmful unless they impede movement? I don’t know anything about the other type of tumor you mentioned, but I’ll look it up. Is it malignant?

It sounds as if they're getting fed a pretty good diet, along with plenty of exercise. So, maybe just watch the area, and see if it develops or not. If it is a tumor, you should notice a proliferation inf the mass, but at this point in time, my guess would be some sort of fatty deposit. Most tumors, including xanthomas in birds, are benign. Correct, they are only really removed if there is discomfort/damage being done to the bird, or if the mass is ulcerating to the point infection may set in.

 

[Cayuga Lover]

It sounds as if they're getting fed a pretty good diet, along with plenty of exercise. So, maybe just watch the area, and see if it develops or not. If it is a tumor, you should notice a proliferation inf the mass, but at this point in time, my guess would be some sort of fatty deposit. Most tumors, including xanthomas in birds, are benign. Correct, they are only really removed if there is discomfort/damage being done to the bird, or if the mass is ulcerating to the point infection may set in.

Thank you for your opinion! We were concerned as we’ve never seen anything like this on any of our birds. I do hope it just stays as is and doesn’t change.