Cockatiel sitting with tail feathers in water dish?

[jessandbeaker]

Hello peeps!

Wanted to pick the brains of some fellow bird people Our cockatiel Beaker is coming up on 5 months old. He has been moulting moderately for about 3 weeks (and my allergies have gone off the chart ) but in the last week or so he has started losing tail feather, about 1 per day. So his tail is looking pretty threadbare.

In addition, in the last few days he has started sitting with his tail feathers in the water dish. When I come in from work and when we take his cover off in the morning, there he is, soggy tail feathers in the water dish!!

He seems pretty happy in general otherwise. He's still eating, still vocalising, and is maintaining an 80g weight (although not gaining, which is also worrying me a bit).

So I guess I have 2 questions. 1: Is it normal for his tail to become so thin during moulting, and 2: what's up with the water baths?

Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks!

J

[cml]

We are doing a second try at converting our birds to water bottles, rather than continuing with our water bowls.
I would suggest to try that as well, because water bowls are potentially a place for bacteria to grow during the day, especially if your parrot "dunks" his pellets like our two fellas ^^.

[cml]

As to the molting, they can often lose a lot of feathers during a molt. I remember thinking that Leroy's tail was a bit thin as well, he had a gap in the middle.

Hopefully some other members have more to add on this =).

[marie83]

Doesn't sound like anything majorly wrong, sometimes they do have pretty heavy moults.
As for the water make sure you change is as often as you can, minimum of twice a day. you can also get dispensers which tend to keep the water cleaner if you don't like the thought of bottles.

How are you managing your allergies? I suffer with them pretty badly and may be able to offer you some tips if your struggling. They wear you down after a while

[Eric&Rebecca]

I wouldn't worry too much about the tail feathers in the dish. All cockatiels do it at some point. We change our water bowls three times per day and we disinfect them every day with f10 (rinsed afterwards!). We moved the pellet bowl to the other side of the cage because Edmund usually drops it before he gets to the water bowl which has eliminated most of the pellet dunking but we still need to change the water quite frequently.

One thing to keep in mind is in the wild cockatiels don't have nice bottled mineral water and nice clean stainless steel bowls. I'm sure their water has lots of bacteria in. Obviously with domesticated birds we must be more careful and there are other bacterias and antibodies around.

Not personally a massive fan of water bottles, the end and spout of them still ge bacteria build up the same as a water bowl. Providing you change it regularly you should be fine and don't forget a good bird safe disinfectant when cleaning.

Onto the moulting- I wouldn't worry too much about the moulting. Edmund lost his tail feathers very fast but then slowed down I think he lost 8 in one week, he lost three in one day once! Looked like a grouse for ages! Most tailfeathers fall out in pairs so I wouldn't worry too much, you'll probably find the left falls out the same day or within one day of the equally positioned feather on the right.

[jessandbeaker]

Thank you all for the advice! It is good to hear from people who have been through the same thing. Like I said, he seems perfectly happy in general, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something

Marie - any allergy advice GREATLY appreciated. I have a doctors appointment later this month to see if I can get something stronger. I'm taking 2 Claritin a day and it's not touching it (tried Zyrtec as well) and I actually have had to take a couple of days off work sick cos I was so exhausted from them (waking up in the night unable to breathe, etc). It's ironic cos I'm allergic to so many things and I figured I knew all the tricks by now

[marie83]

Know the feeling, I only have to look at something to start sneezing. last year was my worst ever as my hayfever went off the radar on top of my other allergies, I had many many sleepless nights due to not being able to breathe properly. That was on top of having two diiferent nasel sprays, 3 doses of the one a day tablets and eye drops. I feel for you.

Check out this thread I commented on a while ago regarding managing allergies.


viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8947&p=60975&hilit=allergy#p60975


If you can get someone else to do cleaning duties that will also help but obviously that can be difficult.
Also should say get a vaccuum with a really good hepa filter, we didn't have a hepa until the end of last year and I can't believe the amount of dust and other rubbish that gets caught up, again its a good idea to empty it outside and get someone else to do it if possible.