Molting

[sharcm1]

My Cockatoo molted her body feathers under her wing and there are fresh pin feathers that have not opened. She has been this way for months. A large portion of the body feathers under her wings are not opening. Anyone know what this is?

[Chantilly]

My Cockatoo molted her body feathers under her wing and there are fresh pin feathers that have not opened. She has been this way for months. A large portion of the body feathers under her wings are not opening. Anyone know what this is?

I would be guessing that she is not preening under her wings, If you give her a shower this may encourage her to preen there - or if you are close enough she may let you scratch them of (scratch pin feather down until it slides off), from what I have gathered, patting under the wings is not normally a good idea as it is a very sensitive(?) area and this will encourage her body to create more hormones..
I have the same thing with my conure who molted about 4 months ago and still has pin feathers on her head (where she cant reach)- she is not often in the mood for scratches, so I only get to oreen them out once every week or two (and then I slip, and that is that for another two weeks).

[Pajarita]

Hmmm, are you sure she is not plucking under her wings and regrowing the feathers as they are been plucked? Because, although pin feathers on the head (where the bird cannot reach with its beak) can last longer than the ones on any other place of the body, it's not normal that feathers under the wings would remain 'unopened' for so long (the friction of moving the wings alone would make the keratin sheaths begin to crumble once they dry up).

[sharcm1]

I thought of plucking at first but I've looked at picture of birds who pluck and it looks nothing like it. Normally I would help her open them but they are the small body feathers and I am not comfortable doing it.

[Wolf]

It would help us to help you if you could post a picture or two of what you are seeing, so that we can see too.

[Pajarita]

Well, pictures are not really THAT useful when the plucking is only under the wings but, normally, if you find 'fallen' feathers too often or if you see a spot where pin feathers are coming out all the time, it's a sign of plucking. And under the wings is one of the most common spots for birds to pluck.

[sharcm1]

I don't know how to post a photo here.

[sharcm1]

I think I figured it out

[sharcm1]

Nope it's too big to attach and I can't reduce the size.

[Wolf]

I don't know what photo app is on your computer but most of them have a resize option in the edit portion of the app. Hope this helps.