Hello

 

Almost three months ago, I got my first budgie Blu. I've noticed that under his wings, there are patches with little or no feathers on them. I'm guessing he is plucking his feathers out because he seems to 'groom' himself a lot. He is still very young, has four toys in his cage, gets let out daily, has training sessions with me daily and is currently on a seed based diet. How do I stop this feather plucking?

 

Also, he has recently had his first Molt because I've noticed pin feathers on his head and around his face. But I don't think the skin patches under his wings have anything to do with the Molt because they've been there since I've had him. Anyway, when I started seeing the pin feathers, two long feathers were on the ground of his cage, ( is this normal? ) one was clean at the bottom and one had blood on it at the bottom ( is that normal? ). I remember he used to have a long dark tourquise looking tail feather within a group of tail feathers right in the middle of the group, but now that really long tourquise looking tail feather has fallen out! Are tail feathers meant to fall out, or is he plucking them out?

 

As you can proberly tell, I'm new to birds and have a lot of questions. I'm really afraid that all of his tail feathers will fall out, since two have fallen out already and he is still only 3-5 months old.

 

Please help, any answers or tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Mine did the same thing awhile back. In case it was mites, I sprinkled just one tap of garlic powder on the food. I gave her some conditioning and moulting seed half and half with regular food. After two weeks the feathers grew back and she was fine. Now I do the garlic powder once a week as a preventative measure.