I came downstairs this morning & discovered 4 feathers on the floor under my bird cage. Having 6 budgies, this is common enough, except I immediately realized that they weren't tail feathers, nor were they part of the general "fluff," as the feathers were long & curved. It took a little time before I came to realize that they are 4 flight feathers from one of my birds' right wing. If she stretches her wing out you can see a red spot from where the feathers used to be, and if she tries to fly she is uneven - almost as though her wing has been clipped on that one side. What confuses me is that at no point yesterday did I hear any squabbling, so I'm unsure when she lost the feathers. Do birds moult their flight feathers too? (Especially 4 at a time?) And should I assume that they will grow back, same as other feathers do??

 

Thanks!

There could be a couple of things.

 

It could be stress moult - Have you changed their enviroment or diet in the last week?

It could be an injury - she could have caught her wing in the cage and pulled out the feathers.

It could be feather cyst - like an ingown feather which will cause a fast growing cyst to grow.

It could be mites - mites feed on the feathers and damage them to a point they become weak and break.

One of my boys...STUD...at the moment is moulting and he lost his flight feathers mostly on one side almost all at once too. So, YES it can happen in moulting.

HOWEVER, examine your bird cage......many a bird has trapped some wing or tail feathers in a section of cage where sides join up and the gap starts wider and then narrows....as the birds feathers slip through the gap and then they move where the gap narrows, feathers are easily caught and when they try to move away the feathers will come out.