Blood feathers

[JadeW]

Tonight, I came home from an evening out to dinner to find Cas sitting on the bottom of his cage and blood everywhere! It was one of the most terrifying things I've seen until my roommate who works in a pet store tells me that he's just broken a blood feather. I saw it, but still have a hard time believing it. The books I've read say you need to be careful with broken blood feathers in case your bird bleeds to death... Why don't they tell you that it looks like murder when you walk into a scene like that?! I know it's going to happen again at some point, but I absolutely hate how it looks

[Kim S]

I know, it scares the hell out of you. I had an albino cockatiel with a broken blooedfeather, imagine that mess!
Usually its not that big of a deal, but you might want to keep an eye on the other bloodfeathers. If you have any flower or corn starch that you can punt on, it will help stop the bleeding faster.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

All the bird care materials I've read say that if a bird breaks a blood feather, you should either take it to the vet to have the broken feather removed or do it yourself. Otherwise it will continue to be vulnerable to bleeding. It can also permanently damage the tissue from which the feathers grow.

To remove, they say use pliers to grasp it at the base and pull it out, then apply pressure to the site until the bleeding stops.

I AM NOT A VET, I'm just "parroting" what I've been exposed to.

[Giantmoa]

the golden eagle at the zoo broke a blood feather once, she bated and spread blood all over the person holding her. the keeper looked like she just came from a horror movie =] personally, I have never had a bird break a blood feather... is it caused by thrashing around or by accidently biting it with a beak? It doesn't seem like it would happen too often, though seeing blood around my bird would scare me so much =o

[JadeW]

It happened last night, but I'm still feeling a bit shaken up about it. My friend was kind enough to pull the broken blood feathers out. Poor guy is now going to be missing the first two flight feathers that are coming in on the right side... Only one was broken, but she pulled the one beside it out too because there was so much blood that on initial inspection she couldn't tell which one the blood was coming from. I'm still so new to this molting thing, I hope that this doesn't happen too often...

Please Cas... Never do that to me again

[Azure Hanyo]

That happened to my cockateil Archimedes!!! It was so scary, I went to uncover his cage in the morning and the first thing I saw was blood all over the bars and all over my poor little bird. I freaked out, thinking something might have somehow gotten into the house and attacked him, but then I saw the feathers littering the bottom of his cage and put two and two together. I felt so awful for him, he was shaking-scared that morning. I never could figure out what spooked him!