There is something in birds called "a blood feather" and a broken one can be some trouble. It's caused by the growth of a new feather after the bird has moulted; more about it at PetEducation.com. It's usually not fatal if treated properly.

I have had birds since I was that proverbial "small tyke" and have never had one with a blood feather that broke. It's something I've read about but never seen.

Pidge has just gone through his summer moult and is dotted with pin feathers. When I got home Tuesday and was playing with him I noticed his left wing had a spot of rusty brown on it, half the size of a penny. He was in good condition, happy, and playful. I assumed he'd had a blood feather, it had bled a bit, and then he'd left it alone and it stopped.

Last night he was in the same high spirits and came to visit us both frequently as we worked on the computer. For some reason our DSL keeps dropping out and the modem does not alert us to the fact—the light's supposed to turn yellow—and we were complaining about that, especially me as I was designing a new graphic for our domain and was looking for a reference photo.

Then I heard Pidge flutter up behind me. A bird's wings make a certain sound when they're working fine and you get used to that sound; when it changes you look quickly to see what has caused the change. So I coaxed Pidge up to my finger and was terrified when I saw that his flight feathers on both wings were soaked in blood! He relentlessly preens after a moult and must have given a blood feather a good bite.

I had to grab him and then took him into the bathroom where the light was better. There was also blood on the feathers under his right wing, so I assumed the blood feather was located around the primaries of his right wing, but when I stretched out the wing I could not identify which of the feathers was actually bleeding.

So it was get dressed and rush to the emergency vet up on Cobb Parkway. Everyone was very nice and it simply involved lots of waiting and weeping until the doctor brought Pidgie back out looking rather subdued but not bleeding anymore. Everyone at the counter cooed over him and we brought him home and finally were able to stumble into bed after 2 a.m. I fell into a troubled sleep in which I dreamed the whole thing at the vet's office again (with different dialog) and checked on him at 6 a.m. (when I should have been getting ready for work); he blinked at me curiously and then I went back to bed for a couple more hours and then went into work.

I really didn't want to leave him, but did. I left him half covered and with a big sprig of millet so he can build himself up again after the blood loss (I've bled more from a scraped knee but he's a whole lot smaller to lose that much blood), and when I left he was attempting to clean the dried blood off himself (the vet didn't do it last night because she was afraid it was stressing him too much). I hope he doesn't go back near the spot where the broken blood feather was, but I can hardly keep him from preening even if I were there—it's part of their life and it would only make him neurotic and afraid if I kept scolding him for it.

So I'm here at work having my sandwich but my mind is about 24 miles away...

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:11:00 PM

Comments:

Oh, no. Please keep us updated.

# posted by  Tina : 9:24:00 PM

 

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