Bucky had a STICK in his neck!

I know! That's what I thought too!

Turns out, that wasn't it at all. (whew!) First off, it was a simple blood feather. . Haha, jokes on the new guy, right? Well, everything I've read about feather growth has said that theyll have a "bluish tint" to the feather while they're growing out. Well, maybe SOME PEOPLE call this a bluish tint, but I call it dark purple, almost black. It is TOTALLY out of place on his neck full of green feathers. Most of his new feathers have come in white (they've all been down so far), but this was a big change!

It kind-if freaked me out last night!

I just think they look like they have a few layers of scotch tape wrapped around them. Which minus the stickum isn't maybe that far off. Scooters generally appear normal color inside the sheath, as do Scotty's. Hmm. Do you help him with the pinfeathers on his head?

VickiNumbers wrote:

I know! That's what I thought too!

Turns out, that wasn't it at all. (whew!) First off, it was a simple blood feather. . Haha, jokes on the new guy, right? Well, everything I've read about feather growth has said that theyll have a "bluish tint" to the feather while they're growing out. Well, maybe SOME PEOPLE call this a bluish tint, but I call it dark purple, almost black. It is TOTALLY out of place on his neck full of green feathers. Most of his new feathers have come in white (they've all been down so far), but this was a big change!

It kind-if freaked me out last night!

At least you didn't pull it out! You would have felt so bad after you realized what it was!

ScooterNScotty wrote:

Do you help him with the pinfeathers on his head?

Xavier the IRN doesn't allow preening. His heads full of pinfeathers right now. It looks terrible.

That would've freaked me out too!

Roz, what if you employed a chopstick to Xavier..

GlassOnion wrote:

That would've freaked me out too!

Roz, what if you employed a chopstick to Xavier..

What makes you think I just have a pile of chopsticks just laying around? How racist!

Just kiddin'! That's a good suggestion. I'll have to go try it.

ScooterNScotty wrote:

Do you help him with the pinfeathers on his head?

Welllll, seeeee... the thing is, I've only had Buck-man for a few months, I've only had BIRDS for a few months, so this whole "feather" business is still new to me. I've been helping him with the pinfeathers on his head and neck, but nothing like this has ever appeared - until now.

So I put on a glove (to protect my delicate fingers from his razor sharp schnoz) and started looking around the rest of himself, and found two more "stick" feathers coming in in various places on his body. He's been plucking AND preening feathers like crazy lately, so I'm pretty sure he's molting - which is a first for me.

All in all, I'm almost as stressed as he is right now!

Can you post a picture of this "wierd" pinfeather, I'm curious!

I am beginning to feel like an old bird hand, but that's partly because I had a lot of exposure to my MILs Amazon before we got our own birds, plus I'd done a ton of reading. It's really only been a year and a half. Now the paranoia has reduced itself to a manageable steady-state and I rarely wake up in the middle of the night thinking I've done something criminally wrong and wanting to check to make sure they are still breathing. LOL.

patdbunny wrote:

ScooterNScotty wrote:

Do you help him with the pinfeathers on his head?

Xavier the IRN doesn't allow preening. His heads full of pinfeathers right now. It looks terrible.

my fingers get so itchy wanting to preen a bird with a head fulla pin feathers. The amazon at work sometimes gets this way and I remember one of the older owls having a bunch of them. Somehow I think preening the owl would be safer.

Einstein NEVER has pin feathers. Every night during our cuddle fest, I 'preen' his feathers for him. He loves it, and it's kind of fun.

Clyde always has a head full of pin feathers. Bonnie is too good for manual labor.

Lol, I LOVE to preen those feathers, Buckers just hasn't had a significant number of them yet. A month or so ago, I wAs at the store and somebody brought in a Quaker they had found in their tree. She seemed to be a young bird and was COVERED with pin feathers. While the store owner talked with the lady who found the bird, I sat and preened her head and neck. She fluffed out her feathers for me, I think she was thrilled someone was helping her. 40 minutes later and I was white with keratin powder, and you couldn't tell I done anything on that poor little birdie. She was a sweet little girl... I'd have brought her home if I could.

But yeah, preening is my fav time of day.

And oh! I've got another interspecies preening tale to tell when I can use my computer instead of my phone! You will giggle at this one!

While we're talking about helping our birds preen -

Just letting you guys know not to freak out if there are lines in the feathers that don't go completely across. Those are commonly mistaken for stress bars (nutritional deficiency), but they are actually trauma lines (preening and catching a feather while it's still forming.) Trauma lines are no big deal. It's just a little "scar" from where you pinched it while it was growing and still had blood in it. My babies have trauma lines because I love to sit and preen them when those little pin feathers are all over them and sometimes I over do it a little.

I was lucky to be able to snap this while he was preening the other night. It's not easy to hold feathers, bird and camera all at the same time! LOL! It doesn't show the whole "stick feather," and makes my fingers look mammoth. They're really not that big

Yup,looks like a pin feather to me, i'd say normal, usually at that age they're pretty tender and he may not want you to mess with it.Poor Jake is covered with them and will Squawk quite loudly if i get one that's not ready.She quickly forgives me though and will let me continue if i leave that one alone.

Juniper is a total B over feathers like that. She honks and bites me if I get near one. She is the grumpiest bird I have ever had over new feathers.

Scooter really wants me to help with the pinfeathers. But then if I hit one wrong, I get a loud indignant squawk and a nip. Then he's begging me to try again.

ScooterNScotty wrote:

Scooter really wants me to help with the pinfeathers. But then if I hit one wrong, I get a loud indignant squawk and a nip. Then he's begging me to try again.

That's what they do to each other all the time. It's pretty funny to watch them preen each other and do that. Sometimes the preener retaliates against the preenee like, "what's your problem?! I'm doing you a favor!"