Hi,

 

I was recently away for a few days and left my budgies in the care of a friend. Whilst being looked after Beanie got her wing stuck in her swing (I'm not sure how). Beanie was in the process of growing a new primary wing feather and in the accident it broke. Apparently, because she was struggling and the amount of blood, the feather in question was a bit hard to find so a couple of her wing feathers were pulled in the hope of stopping the bleeding. Obviously it stopped the bleeding and Beanie is okay. However, now the feathers have started to grow back, one of them is mishapen (sort of twisted around). The other feathers growing back seem fine. Beanie is 2 years old and she has had perfect feathers up until this incident. She doesn't seem to be in any discomfort and it doesn't seem to annoy her in anyway. Does anyone know what's wrong here and if anything can be done to fix what's happened to her?

 

The feather follicle has been damaged due to previous feather accident. It will continue to produce weird munted feathers out of that follicle and theres nothing you can do about that. However watch out for feather cysts forming from that feather follicle too as its also a possibility.

Thanks Kaz for your reply. I only discovered this today and I am pretty upset. I will watch out for a feather cyst which I have never seen but imagine would be a lump type thing. But what should I do about what is there now - the feather in question seems to be growing around in a curve. Should I just let it grow and see how much it affects her or should I pull it out now? It looks awful and I feel so sorry for the poor little thing.

Leave the feather....nothing you can do. If you pull it you may make it worse than it is. Check our topic on Feather cysts in the health forum here.......so you can be prepared if there is one.

I have read the forum information on feather cysts. I'll leave the deformed feather alone for now. I'm moving to NSW next week and I'll take Beanie to an avian vet when I get there (there are none even remotely close where I live now anyway). I just can't see how she will go with this feather growing in this way (curving around). If it continues to grow to a normal length it's got to cause problems for her, I can't see how it couldn't when it would curl up under her wing. Maybe a vet could remove it and the apparently damaged follicle so it wouldn't ever grow back. I think a missing flight feather would be preferable to what would happen if this feather continues to grow.

I have read the forum information on feather cysts. I'll leave the deformed feather alone for now. I'm moving to NSW next week and I'll take Beanie to an avian vet when I get there (there are none even remotely close where I live now anyway). I just can't see how she will go with this feather growing in this way (curving around). If it continues to grow to a normal length it's got to cause problems for her, I can't see how it couldn't when it would curl up under her wing. Maybe a vet could remove it and the apparently damaged follicle so it wouldn't ever grow back. I think a missing flight feather would be preferable to what would happen if this feather continues to grow.

 

 

Yes the damaged feather follicle can be cut out.

I have a bird that has come back like this from my sister's aviary. The bird has damaged his wing somehow and now he is unable to fly properly. He will live out his days in the aviary where he can climb around.

At the moment Beanie can fly perfectly well - at least whilst the deformed feather is still small. I'll take her to an avian vet as soon as I'm in NSW and hopefully the deformed feather will be able to be removed. She'll be minus a flight feather but that's okay, so long as she recovers and is happy afterwards. I can't believe what's happened and how. I think partly it's because she isn't used to being caged. I'm at home so my budgies are free to come and go from their cage at will (except at night - I lock them in then). When I have had to lock Beanie in during the day (ie visitors arriving), she's quite feral in her cage, almost turning herself inside out while clinging to the bars, digging all the seed out of the feeder & tugging at the water container until there's none left. So she must've been doing that sort of thing and no one thought to stop/distract her (like I would do). Thanks Kaz for your input and advice.

 

Dave did your budgie suffer the same feather injury as Beanie or was it also involving the bone/joint of the wing? Beanie seems only to have the feather issue, the joint seems perfectly normal and she flies as well as ever. Though that's only for now, things may change if the feather continues to grow to it's full size - then it's sure to cause problems.