Molting

[Brittanyv326]

What age did your parrot start molting?

Sadie is 7 months old and is losing feathers from her belly, back, and head. Isn't this a little early for a molt? I did read somewhere that it occurs most often in late spring, early fall, has anyone found this to be true? Also, if this is a molt, how many months will it be before her flight feathers come back in? Does molting differ between species?

One of my biggest concerns about this is that as these feathers comes out, Sadie is eating them. Literally swallowing them and her eyes pin as she does it. Is this truly a sign of calcium deficiency? Her pellets have calcium in them, and she eats plenty of pellets, so why is she doing this? I also have a cuttlebone, but she's scared of it. This can't be healthy behavior, although my neighbor's Quaker does the same thing but has been a long term plucker.

[Michael]

That sounds a bit early to start molting, but hey it all depends. Now you're sure she is molting actually body feathers and not just the white down? Kili's first molt didn't come till she turned one year. She didn't get enough primaries to fly until about a year and three months.

Are you certain of the hatch day of yours or are you just going based on when you got it? BTW Kili has been molting pretty extensively lately. Probably for the last 2 months she's been molting plumage but the recent weeks she has begun molting primaries. They seem to come toward the end of the molt.

[Brittanyv326]

I'm not sure of the difference between body feathers and white down. Usually she loses her white fluffy soft feathers when preening, and occasionally a colored one. But now she's losing orange, green, and I think gray ones. She's preening a lot. I considered that maybe I was lied to or there was a mistake about her age. I got her on 5/26 and was told her hatch day was 1/16/10. The lady was recalling this from memory, she has no band on her leg, so I guess she could be older. Thanks for your quick answer.

ADD:
If she's really older than 7 months, it would make more sense too that she's doing her regurgitating and her pretty little mating dance... Or is this normal for parrots under a year?

[Kim S]

Kika started regurgitating and doing the dance as well. He is almost a year now.
He had a lot of pins on his head and neck when I got him and accoding to his previous owner he was in the middle of molting. But he just looses a lot of down. None of his flight feathers or tailfeathers are being replaced. Im kinda waiting for that.

But how exactly does he eat his feathers? Does he play with the ones that fall out, that would be normal in my eyes. I see my cockatiels do that a lot. As long as he doenst overdo it ofcourse.

[Brittanyv326]

She is swallowing them, I watch her do it, and when I go to grab them from her (she holds them in her claw and munches on them) she puts the whole thing in her mouth and it disappears.

How early did Kika start doing the mating stuff? Sadie regurgitated for me about a month ago making her 6 months. I hope I have her correct birthday, mostly for the milestones like these.

[birdvet]

Try to discourage her eating too many feathers, it's not a calcium deficiency but could turn into behavioural feather picking if she decides she likes the taste and then starts pulling them out to eat them. Its a hard one to control but try distracting her with toys, training and foraging opportunities...

Good luck!

[Kim S]

Kika started right after he was comfortable enough in our home. We got him a couple of months ago and he is almost a year old. So I guess he started the mating behaviour before we got him, making it prior to eight months.

That feather eating does sound nasty.
A breeder I know gives the birds a tea made from nettle and garlic. This (among other good qualities) makes the feathers taste icky. She says its good method to prevent feather picking.
I'm not sure about the habit-pickers that have been doing it for years, but this might be a good way to stop a beginning habit.