Tonight I came back home to find Thimble minus a tail ! Is this french moult?! Will it grow back? He can still fly very well and I read that they can't fly with french moult, is this true? Please answer!

Tonight I came back home to find Thimble minus a tail ! Is this french moult?! Will it grow back? He can still fly very well and I read that they can't fly with french moult, is this true? Please answer!

 

okay, first bbit of advice is calm down.

 

Question 1 - is Thimble one of the young birds? If so, do not freak out as it has dropped its tail. You can never declare a bird as having french moult because of one dropped feather.

 

Question 2 - are any of the flight/wing feathers affected or showing signs of unusual wear and tear, or even missing?

 

Take a photo and upload it. That will give people a much better idea.

 

At the moment though, I think you are jumping the gun a bit here in worrying whether it is feather moult.

I agree with Dave, great advice.

No unusual feathering. Thanks. I'll take a photo today.

Generally the tail is the first thing you notice, then the wing flights fall out. Pick up the baby and see if the wing flights are loose or any are lost already.

Wing flights aren't loose and haven't fallen out.

My young birds often stress drop tails at weaning but have never stress dropped flights or other feathers.

 

If flights are all still nice, tight and present and correct I would not suspect FM. Anyway USUALLY FM affects fledging chicks that are still in the nest.

 

Tail feathers should grow back just fine.

My young birds often stress drop tails at weaning but have never stress dropped flights or other feathers.

 

If flights are all still nice, tight and present and correct I would not suspect FM. Anyway USUALLY FM affects fledging chicks that are still in the nest.

 

Tail feathers should grow back just fine.

I agree. If there's no sign of losing wing flights you dont have much to worry about at this stage.

Phew! Got to check anothers tail because it appears green instead of blue, strange.

Here is a picture.

Looks fine. Sometimes other babies pull each others tail feathers out

That would probably be Lexi. She likes hanging off her siblings tails. I can never get a photo of it. She just sits underneath and grabs the tail.