Oh my god. Did she just...? HELP!

[hlasdf]

As some of you may know, Daisy was growing out a single feather from her clipped wings and it was being very painful and bothersome to her because they were extremely sensitive and protruding compared to her clipped wings. And sometimes they stuck out like this, making the pain even worse:

http://imgur.com/cZOekd4
http://imgur.com/A2BsMG3
http://imgur.com/3iltoBs

I tried helping her through it by tucking them in whenever possible even though it only hurt her more momentarily. Well, today she was preening on my knee where I had a good view of everything she did, so I watched carefully when she preened her wing with that one feather. She seemed to do it a bit more rough than usual but I wasn't too sure since I don't normally take note of exactly how she preens. I also noticed that instead of white wax falling her her, there were some darker pieces. I assumed she'd gotten some food stuck in her feathers and was getting it out. So our day continued normally until about 10 minutes ago when her feather was sticking out again. At first she screamed in pain for a few seconds until she'd had enough and just started flapping violently in place until *FWIP* the feather popped out!!! :

http://imgur.com/d5FXUJS
http://imgur.com/8qQb6Kd

This caught me totally by surprise and now I'm freaking out. What if she does this with all of her feathers when they grow in?! What if she can't fly later because of this one feather? Another scary thing about this is that if you look closely at the base of the feather, you can see BLOOD. Did a blood feather just fall out?! I'm assuming that if it just fell out on its own, she's been working on pulling it out/breaking it for a while, yet I haven't seen any blood around her feathers. What do I do?!

[KimberlyAnn]

I do not know, but poor Daisy! I'm also worried for when Emmi grows out her flight feathers.

[Cockatielsongs]

Is Daisy bleeding? You need to pull the rest of the feather out with tweezers or something and put kiwi stop or flour or corn starch.

[hlasdf]

Is Daisy bleeding? You need to pull the rest of the feather out with tweezers or something and put kiwi stop or flour or corn starch.

No, there's no bleeding as far as I can tell. But then again, it's hard to get a close look, let alone touch her wings without her trying to chomp my finger off.

[KimberlyAnn]

This is something I don't have experience in (blood feather breaking), but with all I've read and seeing that picture, there has to be more to that feather. It does not whole to me.

What I've read and what my vet has said when I asked about it, was if a blood feather must be pulled. It can open again and act like a straw and drain the bird of blood. So it must have broken and that's why she was in pain, but maybe not enough blood for you to tell before.

So from what I read, have someone help you wrap the bird quickly in a wash cloth or towel. Use tweezers or something like that. Find the rest of the feather and pull straight out. Then apply pressure to stop the bleeding and things should be ok. After that, pat yourself on the back! Now you will know what to do next time if it happens again.

Or call the vet and explain what happened and bring her in. I think I would call anyway. I'm not sure what you will need to watch out for or if an infection can start.

Also, report back! I know I would be a frantic mess if Emmi broke a blood feather. We can learn together! And I'm sorry this happened. Daisy is such a cutie! I know how worried you must be!

[Eric&Rebecca]

OK... First thing will be you need to examine the wing. I know she's gonna fight you but if there is something you wrong you need to be able to see it. I don't like toweling but when necessary it needs to be done.

Examine the feather that came out, does it look whole? How much blood was on the feather? If it's just a dot at the end and the feather is whole I wouldn't be concerned too much about there being something immediately wrong.

If there is part of the feather or quill left it will need pulling. If you're not comfortable doing this you need to get to a vet as soon as possible to have it pulled. A broken feather or remnant could cause an infection or irritation.

Perhaps it might be worth a vet visit anyway. If she's pulling the feather out there could be something else going on. They can perform a feather analysis of the feather that fell out to check for evidence of certain things. Most likely there's nothing like that wrong and its probably just a feather she found irritating. It is one of the known consequences of clipped wings although most birds can find newly grown feathers uncomfy!

[Eric&Rebecca]

Just seen the pictures and no the feather does not look whole. Looks like she chewed through the stem of the feather to snap it off.. I'd take her to vets.

[Pajarita]

Yes, you will have to take her to a vet to have the shaft pulled out.

This is exactly what happens when birds are clipped and the primaries start growing out of order and bother them, they pull them out or cut them at the base of the shaft. Watch her carefully because birds have been known to pick up plucking because of this problem... One way of solving the problem is imping but that means the bird will no longer be clipped, of course.

[lifesazoo33]

Is Daisy bleeding? You need to pull the rest of the feather out with tweezers or something and put kiwi stop or flour or corn starch.

DO NOT USE KWICK STOP! Using it on feathers and/or skin can cause necrosis of the area - I found this out when the same thing happened to my Jardine's. I took him to emerg (of course it happened after hours - as all pet related things seem to happen), and the vet said that if we left the tip in, it could have cause an infection, abscesses, or begin bleeding again. Bring your bird to an avian vet, or one who has experience with this sort of thing.
Nothing to worry about at the moment, but it could become an issue if not removed fully.
As for flight and feather growth, the new feather should come in normally.
I also doubt that this will happen with other feathers, the feather shaft probably bent from something (like hitting their wings on the cage when flapping crazily, for example), which is why is was sticking out at odd angles. The reason it came out as an incomplete or broken feather, is because she probably chewed at the part which was bent - the source of her pain. I hope that this helps!

[hlasdf]

Thanks for your replies, everyone! I took a look at her wing and her feathers, but there was no stem left behind which is pretty confusing because it does seem like the feather was chewed off instead of pulled out. And some of you seem to think that that was an old feather instead of a new one, when instead it was the new feather which is why I'm worried she won't be able to fly until her next molt.