I'm new to this forum so this question may alread have been asked.

One of my birds has lost the longest feather on one wing and consequently can't fly properly but only flutter, usually to the floor of the aviary upon each attempt tp fly. Will this grow back in time or is this the bird's handicap forever?

is he going through a moult? This is very common and it should be replaced pretty quick if that is the case. If not it will come back in his next moult.

No, it is not moulting at present. The bird came to us about 2 months ago with the feather missing and I'm unable to determine exactly how it lost it. If it came out as a result of a fight, getting caught somehow etc and not naturally, will it still grow back at the next moult? How frequent is moulting?

budgies usually moult 2x a year depending on the conditions

the first moult is around 3-4 months old so if you know how old your bird is you may be able to foresee the next one.

 

yes it should come back in with no problem.

okay, thanks very much.

I am concerned that you say he can't fly anymore with only one feather gone....one feather should not make any difference in how they fly. When birds molt in the wild they sometimes have a few missing and it does not affect flight. If it did, they would all have died off as a species long before now. Is there anything else that makes this bird stand out from the rest of the flock?

No, he eats heartily, chirps a great deal and appears happy, it is only his inability to fly that makes him different. When he's sitting on a perch and his wings are folded, on one side the long feather (or maybe it is feathers) that extend halfway down his tail is absent. There are the softer "down" like feathers but not the longer more rigid looking type he has on the other side.

 

Is there a way I can examine him to more accurately determine what is missing? Make it sutable for a novice to do, though.

If you can you or someone can hold him and spread out his wing and take a picture to post here for use to look at it. We are not vets (Laughing out loud) but we can at least give you a better opinion.

It sounds to me that the bird had a wing clip before coming to you. Many people clip only one wing (which is bad, throws the bird off balance) instead of doing both sides evenly. In this case, he's lost more than one feather, probably all the flights. If they also did the secondary feathers (the shorter ones next to the long flight feathers) that would explain the extreme difficulty flying. These feathers will come back with your bird's next molt.

 

 

Managed to get this photo but when I was extending the bird's wing, I noticed that there was a "stub" (just above the tip of my middle finger in the photo). It was solid to the touch, somewhat like scar tissue but didn't cause any apparent discomfort to the bird when touched. As is obvious, the longer flight feather/s are missing. Any ideas.

I believe eterri hit it on the nail on the prior post about the wing clip and they may have damaged or he may have when he was trying to fly that is where the stubbed one came into play.

 

A moult will bring in new feathers so I learned patience is the answer because I had the same concern with Merlin too with his wings.