Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 8/19/2007

Question
QUESTION: i have a budgie and she is around 4 years old and shares a cage with a male budgie. she is loosing tail feathers and when the fall out they have dried blood inside of the protective casing, she now has no tail feathers and i was wondering if you know whats wrong with her.

ANSWER: Hi, Kat,

Is the bird molting?  Can you tell me how long these feathers are that she is losing that have dried blood inside?  Are the tail feathers whole or broken off?  Is the bird losing other feathers on the body?  

The dried blood is normal for a feather that has reached its full length.  Growing feathers have a blood supply that dries up when the feather has reached its full length.  Tail feather loss can also be attributed to a cage that is too small (if the bird isn't going through a molt).  Too small of a cage results in the bird's tail feathers brushing against cage wire, etc., during play/movement and often breaking off.

If you can provide answers to my questions, I might be able to offer further assistance.  Thanks.

Chrys

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: they are about 3-4cm long and she has a large cage and the feathers are whole. it's just the tail feathers she's losing and also she is a yellow bird but she has been developing these red lines on some of her new feathers- just maybe 10 of them have new lines, these are spread all over her body.

Answer
Hi again, Kat.

Sounds to me like the bird is molting if these are whole feathers.  Birds tend to molt feathers in certain areas of their body at the same time, i.e., all the tail feathers (although they don't fall out all at the same time).  The red lines you describe are interesting.  These lines could be stress lines.  A bird will develop stress lines on feathers if the bird is under a lot of stress when these particular feathers are growing out.  The stress line location on the feather indicates the bird was under stress at that point when the feather was growing from the body.  I can't recall ever seeing red feathers on a budgie as a natural feather color.  Could also be perhaps your budgie is getting into something that is coloring her feathers red.  Could the red be blood from somewhere that has been dragged across her feathers?  Sometimes when there is a broken blood feather blood can get "splashed" on the bird's feathers when the bird flaps its wings.

Chrys