Trimming his own wings. Unfortunately.

[Kaedyn]

Rigel likes to play hard in his cage and in doing so, he's managed to break many of his primary flights. The good in this is that I don't have to worry about wing trimming. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to do as neat a job as an experienced person would do and it's a real mess when he spreads his wings. He's even broken a few of his pretty red tail feathers.

 

Now he's only around 10 months old and I assume these are not his adult feathers. I have to think the adult feathers would be stronger. I brought him home from the breeder at around 16 weeks of age and quickly converted him to a diet of Harrison's, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. I'm hoping this will also improve the strength of his adult feathers.

 

I see a lot of birds on this forum, which all seem to have fairly full plumage. So, I don't know if it's just the way he plays, his diet as a baby, or possibly the size and layout of his cage. His current cage is fairly cheap, but large. It measures 48h 36w and 24d. It's not overcrowded, just a few toys, food/water bowls and two concrete perches near the top. It has a rope perch which extends from the top to the lower portion of the cage, where a single wooden cage-length perch sits about a foot from the bottom.

 

Does anyone have any insight into my broken feather issue? Are there cage and cage-bar designs that seem to contribute to breaking feathers? Is this normal for a young bird's first set of feathers?

[Tycos_mom]

I don't think you have to much to worry about baby birds have not mastered the preening prosess and tend not to take as good care as older bird I would probubly take him in and get his flight feather trimmed properly just because when they are all uneven like that they could become irritating to him and he may start barbering or plucking them as for the rest just wait until his first molt and I'm sure his next feathers he will keep beautifully.

 

[mas]

Hi Kaedyn,

My 10 month old also broke some of her tail feathers playing rough - this didn't turn into an issue, however broken wing feathers did (result of a bad wing clip) and she started barbering her feathers herself because they were irritating her - ended up she had to go under anesthetic last week to get the feathers removed - not nice!

 

My advice would be to take her to an AVIAN VET, someone who knows what they are doing - and get them to trim the wing feathers that are damaged - otherwise they may start to irritate her, and damage her skin if they have rough edges.

 

To stop Zahzu damaging her tail feathers I put a bit more space between her toys, to prevent her bumping her tail into things - that stopped the tail feather breakage.

 

Also, to help with lovely plumage in the future, give your baby 1/4tsp of red palm oil daily - in soft food, or dip a treat into it - its great for dry skin too.:cheer:

 

Enjoy!

-Sameera

[danmcq]

Kaedyn,

 

That is some rough playing Rigel is doing to damage all those Feathers. :-) He must be a real active and outgoing Grey.

 

I am uncertain of any difference in strength of young Grey's Feather shafts versus adults. Did your baby have an improper diet as an infant? That seems to be what you are alluding to in your text.

 

Your cage is definitely large enough height and width wise. The 24 inch depth is a little narrow for him to be centered and fully extend his wings tip to tip. But, I doubt that is that culprit. It just sounds as though you have one energetic and fun loving Grey thats as tough on his feathers, as children are are clothes. :-)

 

The others have given good advice on having the wings clipped by a professional avian vet. This should provide the good, clean and even cut to ensure he is not being irritated by them or detecting frayed and rough edges that he will try to preen out and destroy whats left of those offending feathers.

 

Have you ever actually seen the activity causing the damage to his Primaries and Tail feathers? Is he actually slapping cage sides or toys with powerful enough force that you see a feather bent or broken in real-time?

 

Does he sometimes fall and perhaps break a tail feather when landing on the floor of the cage?

[Kaedyn]

Thanks for the replies! The breeder had him eating Zupreem when I picked him up. I believe his baby formula was also Zupreem, which I've always assumed was a decent brand, but maybe not as good as Harrison's. He's not a big fan of the red palm oil, but he loves the Harrison's Power Treats, which say they contain "palm oil". I'm not sure if this differs from the red variety.

 

I've seen him cause feather damage through a variety of means, sometimes while playing and climbing on the sides of his cage. Once during the recent earthquake, he was purposely dropping to the bottom of his cage, with wings flapping. While out of the cage, I've seen him fly off his perch and bump into objects in his way, but I think that came from unskilled flight. He doesn't seem to do that anymore. He just likes to be where we are, so he's not always one to stay where he's put. That's why I wound up building him a portable perch. I've seen him break feathers while fighting with toys. Mostly, he hits them on the sides of his cage or on other objects in the cage.

 

The breeder warned me about him before I bought him. She said he "played hard". He was the last of a huge group of babies. He either didn't click with the adopting families or they went for the birds with the bright tail feathers, with all of them in tact. Personally, I consider it their loss, since his personality has more than made up for a few missing feathers. Don't get me wrong, other than his tail and some broken primary flights, the rest of his plumage looks healthy.

 

He likes people and isn't shy unless it's a complete stranger. I've never been bitten and I've done things, such as introduce him to a flight harness and hold him upside down while carrying him around. I've even lifted his wings and clipped some of the broken feathers myself, without much complaining on his part. He even started talking before he reached 5 months. So, I suppose the lesson here is, you shouldn't pick a bird solely based on looks? The breeder called him her favorite of the bunch.

 

Now if only I could have my cake and eat it too. A great personality along with pretty plumage.

[danmcq]

Well it's wonderful to hear he is just a very rough and tumble guy with a personality that seems to make him 10 feet tall. :-)

 

Kaedyn - Your right, it is your gain and all the others loss. he will learn as he ages when to flap those wings hard and when not to. It just takes some calibrating on his part and as brilliant as these Grey's are, it will not take long.

 

You really need to snap some photos or video of these wild and crazy sessions. I know I would love to see them as well as most others here. :woohoo:

[Dave007]

If your bird's flight feathers were fully grown out then there's no difference in strength from what a 5,6,7 yr old bird would have. That applies to fully grown tail feathes Once a flight feather or tail feather is in, it's in. They don't get stronger with age. The only time they get harder is when they start to dry internally and are just about ready to fall out.

You should be very happy that you have a very outward bird that enjoys having extremely aggressive mock fights with his toys. All greys that are that way will injure feathers, get bruises on the face. But notice that he's not a feather plucker/chewer. The cage is a fine size for greys, amazons, small cockatoos, mini macaws. Just recently, there was a person here that had the exact opposite problem. Not enough toys to release pent up aggressive energy. I told her to get hard items that the bird could go after instead of itself.

Get your bird out onto a playstand ALOT for long periods of time. Hang all of the toys that are banging him and causing broken feathers. Leave the softer toys in the cage. If he bangs them around, there won't be injury.Put those hard toys on the stand and let him bang them around out there. Any grey that has that type of temperment will soon learn the art of avoiding getting hurt when doing that. Your bird is still young and clumsy but enjoys having his toys hit him back. There's a lot of birds here that have nice plumage and there's a lot of that don't but the huge majority of those birds that have lousy plummage have gotten it from plucking/ chewing/ health problems/inside the cage frustration/being ignored..not from having toys injure them constantly.

 

Example---think about a boxer that's just starting out. Kinda raw still. gets punched alot. Starts to get better but eventually, as time goes on, he learns to slightly avoid the right cross, the sneaky jab,learns how to throw a quick body shot and is able to back away and watch the opponent's surprise when he misses that return shot.<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2008/05/26 19:54