This is Alaina. I bought her on May 2nd, and she didn't appear to have any problems at that time. Even after quarantine, I thought she was fine, or I would not have mixed her in with the main flock.

She couldn't fly, but I thought it was because her clipped wings hadn't grown back yet.

I've had other babies with clipped wings that had a hard time managing the large flight cage, so I put in some low perches, to help them with their climbing up. That's what I did for Alaina, too.

Then I started noticing that all her climbing around on the bars was messing up her tail feathers. I figured once she moulted, new ones would grow back.

But that hasn't happened.

I thought she was going into a moult around the end of July. She lost her two tail feathers, and she got a few pin feathers on her head. But that was all. She still has an unbroken cap, and it is a month later. There has been no sign of new wing feathers, and her tail feathers are all short and messy.

I've had her for almost four months, now, and I've been thinking that she must have been awfully young in the pet shop to go this long at home without going into a moult yet.

So today I did a search on French Moult, and I think that is what she has.

I went to take pictures of her for this post, and I decided to catch her up to get better shots of her wings. That's when I noticed what terrible shape her wings are in on the underside. (It doesn't show normally.)

So if it isn't French Moult, I don't know what the problem is. I hope you guys can tell me.

 

Here are the photos:

 

 

 

 

Right wing:

 

 

Left wing:

 

 

 

Underside of tail:

 

 

 

Top Side of Tail:

 

Edited October 8, 201014 yr by Finnie

I'm no expert, but I have experienced a similar thing with a hen I have. http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....&hl=rachelm When she was in the aviary and trying to fly it made her flights break and bleed. So I put her in a holding cage until the flights grew back. It took about 5months before she recovered. Hope this helps and she makes a full recovery.

Edited August 26, 201014 yr by rachelm

Thank you for the response, Rachel. I saw your post this morning when I was searching for FM, and I actually was going to post on it and ask how your girl has gotten along, now that she's been in the aviary for a while. (I got busy with my thread, though, and I forgot.)

 

But I noticed that your hen didn't have any issues with her tail, and mine has a really ratty tail. Also, my hen's inner wings look a lot more mangled (?), so I'm thinking that if it is the same issue, mine must have it worse.

 

I like the idea of putting her in a holding cage, though. I've noticed that she makes kamikaze dives from the high perch whenever I fiddle around in the cage, and maybe that is contributing to her injuries.

 

From what I've read, if it's French Moult, and it hasn't already devestated her, then she is a candidate to go on to live a healthy life. I just hope it's not something that is going to spread through my whole flock, especially since I am expecting hatchlings, soon. She was already in the main cage before I separated my breeding pairs out, so I hope she didn't give it to them. :thumbs_up:

My hen has made a full recovery and is doing great. I think when they flutter about too much it does make injuries worse. I was worried also that she might of spread FM to my other birds but i won't really know until I breed some chicks. Best of luck with her :thumbs_up:

Edited August 26, 201014 yr by rachelm

I think you need to watch her for awhile. The wing looks like she is chewing it and so does the tail.

Does not look like FM to me Finnie. FM affects the feathers as they grow. Your bird looks like she has (or someone else has) chewed her tail as Kaz says. On the wing she has a healthy looking quill growing through the clipped feathers which she has obviously knocked or chewed to make bleed otherwise all the clipped feathers look healthy too. Also FM usually affects baby birds still in the nest causing mild to severe loss of feather.

 

Some stress behaviour maybe......

I agree with Kaz and Nubbly on this post :thumbs_up:

Stress behavior, hmm...

 

Kaz, when you mentioned chewing, it made sense, because it kind of looks like part of her wing was eaten away.

 

Well, it's definitely a separate cage for her, then. Because that way, if some other bird is doing the damage, it will stop, and if it's her doing the damage, maybe she will feel safer and less stressed in the small cage. At least I know she won't be flopping down and crashing into stuff. Maybe it will give her a chance to heal.

 

Thank you for describing what you see about her, Nubbly. I did wonder how it could be French Moult when she had a healthy tail at a younger age, and only seemed to have feather problems at an older age.

 

I've noticed that she is the smallest bird in there, so now I'm wondering if the other birds have bullied her away from the food. I've never really noticed any one actually picking on her, but they could be, and they just stop when I show up. If there is a bird in my flock harrassing her, I hope he or she doesn't move on to a different victim once I take Alaina away. (But that's not really likely, is it?)

 

I will try to keep this thread updated with her progress. Hopefully with a safer environment and access to her own food she will improve. :thumbs_up:

Also check her over carefully for signs of feather mites which if she has them might make her chew.

Also check her over carefully for signs of feather mites which if she has them might make her chew.

 

 

I just went off to find that post that had pictures of feather mites, so I could refresh my mind what to look for. I found the post, it's pinned, and Liv wrote it. (Here it is:Feather Mites ) But, rats! Her pictures are gone!

 

Matt W. has some nice pics of quill mites on there, but I was hoping to see Liv's pictures.

 

LIV !!! We need your help!

 

Is there any way you can fix the links to your photos?

Also check her over carefully for signs of feather mites which if she has them might make her chew.

 

 

I just went off to find that post that had pictures of feather mites, so I could refresh my mind what to look for. I found the post, it's pinned, and Liv wrote it. (Here it is:Feather Mites ) But, rats! Her pictures are gone!

 

Matt W. has some nice pics of quill mites on there, but I was hoping to see Liv's pictures.

 

LIV !!! We need your help!

 

Is there any way you can fix the links to your photos?

 

:thumbs_up: Oops, never mind, Liv. I read your thread a little more closely, and found that Elly has put it, along with the photos, in the Budgie FAQs section. Here it is: Feather Mites, FAQs

 

Those really are awesome photos!

 

(And I checked Alaina with a magnifying lense, and there were specks, but they turned out to be dried blood from her wounds. She didn't have anything resembling the mites in the photos.)

Update:

 

I've had Alaina in isolation for about 7 weeks now. Actually, for about half that time I've had a cock in there with her to keep her company, because she would just sit there not moving much. The idea was to have her under less stress, to see if her conditon improved. All alone seemed stressful, so I thought a friend would help. I don't know if having Ariel (the cock, I know- girl's name.) in with her was more or less stressful. But they seemed to get along fine, and lately they have been preening and feeding each other, so I think she was happy with him.

 

Well, I never put Ivermectin on her before, because I didn't see any sign of mites. But today I decided I should have done it, and also that if she had any, the rest of my flock could be infected with them, since she used to live in the main cage. So I decided to catch them all up and dose them. I also decided to re-evaluate Alaina.

 

She really is no better than she was seven weeks ago. If anything, she is worse. I haven't noticed her doing any excessive preening, What I do notice, is that whenever I have to do anything in the cage, like feed them, she will always jump/fall to the bottom of the cage, flop around a while, and then climb the bars back up to the high perch.

 

It caused a bit of ruckus catching Ariel and putting Ivermectin on him, and by the time I got to doing Alaina, both of her wings were like bloody stumps! I have not noticed any bleeding during the 7 week isolation, but today, it was like she just busted open all her short little feather stubs. I tried to pluck a couple, to see if that would stop the bleeding, but that didn't seem to help. It just seemed to hurt her.

 

I did find one feather in the bottom of her cage, though, and it has black things in the quill. I got a couple of pictures to show you:

 

 

 

 

 

I really can't tell what it looks like in there. I will probably end up taking the feather in to the vet's office for them to look at, and probably have to take Alaina in, too.

If it was French Moult, it doesn't seem like it would be so bloody.

And it doesnt seem as though she's self mutilating.

Ariel certainly doesn't attack her. In fact, I decided that she was better off without him, so after his Ivermectin, he went back into the main cage. If she does have some kind of feather or quill mite, I don't want him with her anymore. Hopefully the ivermectin I put on everybody will stop it from spreading. None of the other birds have this problem, and up until seven weeks ago, she was in there with all of them.

She doesn't seem to be getting any better, so I guess I better take her to the vet and see if I can find out what is really going on.

 

I know those are pretty bad pictures, but if anyone recognizes what is wrong with that quill, I would appreciate any input. After all, I have all weekend to speculate on this while I wait for the vet to be open.