Tobies flight interrupted

[Janfromboone]

I didn't know whether to post this - It's kind of a downer. It's only fair to others who are struggling as I was with trying to help my bird who chews feathers gain flight. I looked for my post "Tobie takes flight" to try to recall when Tobie did first fly but couldn't find it. He had started getting pretty good with his landings and building confidence. He had broken a couple of feathers in his tail and had a gap in his right wing ( the one he used to chew ) by this spring. I wasn't sure if he was chewing again or just breaking them when he would have a rough landing or get too close to the furniture with a wing. Then he broke another flight feather and I could see the chew marks on it. That left only two flight feathers past the widening gap. Amazingly he still could fly but would just not go as far. Then like dominos he broke (maybe chewed) one then the other. He now is flightless. The only good news I can offer is that he doesn't crash hard to the floor like he did before he gained flight. He still has enough feathers in the wing to coast out and land. He's going back to the vet but I don't know at this point what she will be able to offer. I am so glad that he had the opportunity to fly though.

[Luvparrots]

Jan, if you will go into your profile and look down the list, you will find "Find All Started Threads" go into that and all the threads you have started are listed.

[Janfromboone]

Yes, I just checked and he took his first flight January 30th or so and so he has been flying quite a few months. About four months of flight before he lost those two flight feathers that ended it. Most of that time he was fully flighted. Only the past 4 weeks had I noticed that he couldn't maintain altitude and then he lost the last two feathers in the last two weeks. I'm hoping this is just a postponement. It's disheartening though. He has a blood feather coming in - probably a feather lost some time ago because it's between the last third of the wing and the second third. He has done some chewing on it already. He seems so happy and relaxed. I can't figure it out.

[Lambert58]

Jan,

 

We're in a similar situation with our Willow. She's not a plucker. When we purchased her last April, she was 8 weeks old and the morons at the pet store had clipped four flights on her left wing. Yes. Just one wing. Over the next 8 months, she managed to chew all her tail feathers off. Over the last 4 months, she's had a long, tough molt. She's regrown her tail feathers but those 4 freaking flights just refuse to molt out. I'm half tempted to take her to the vet and have them pulled. She's semi-flighted, like your fid, but can't get any lift and has had a few run-ins with the walls/furniture. We don't want to clip her because she's always had at least some flight ability, but at the same time we worry for her safety.

 

Our approach is to keep her as occupied and happy as possible. She's a grumpy bear because of the molting (looked like a cotton ball for about a month), but we just give her attention and really monitor her preening to make sure she doesn't get too aggressive. It's time consuming and takes a lot of patience, but we're hoping it pays off. So far so good. She now has a full tail coming in and has molted off most of her back/chest so we're crossing our fingers.

 

Our other grey has exactly NONE of those problems and looks like feathered perfection. go figure.

[danmcq]

I am sorry to hear this Jan. I look forward to hearing what the vet has to say in regards the cause and a solution.

[Janfromboone]

Yes, I really think we create a mess when we clip our greys. I think being clipped at such a young age is a great part of Tobies problem.

[she]

I agree Jan, clipping before fledging can cause a lot of the problems you are going through. Dont loose heart ,its a minor set back and tomorrow is another day

[Janfromboone]

Thanks for the encouragement. We saw the avian vet today and she felt that we should just give it some time and not do anything different except she suggested misting him if he is fussing over his feathers. Because this all happened in the spring she wonders if Tobie's awakening sexuality might be part of the chewing problem. I never actually see him chewing now. He also could have hurt the wing, clipping it on furniture or the doorway in flight and chewed at the sore wing. Who knows.