Ingrown tail feathers....

[kerryandgoofy]

I did "surgery" last night on a budgie that had some ingrown feathers. What a mess! It was a really nice cobalt cock that I produced about the start of summer. I did the big no no and pulled his 2 tail feathers that were broken in hopes they would come back well enough to show at the Grand. This bird had not been through his first molt yet. Sadly they never came back. This winter I began to notice that he was staring to miss even more tail feathers. I caught him and discovered that his tail was a mess and all swollen. I could see some infection through the skin.

Yesterday after work I asked the dentist next door if I could barrow or buy a scalpel. He's a chatty neighbor and I felt comfortable about doing that.

I won't go into details, but the blade was the perfect size. The bird never said a peep after initially catching him. I had his front in loosely wrapped in a was cloth exposing his rump. He stood quietly while I "operated" and pulled the junk out of those follicles. He had 3 quills that were 1/4 long in each follicle! I was only able to work on 2. I'm hopping the swelling goes down quickly to see if there are any others that I need to work on.

He is resting quitely in a hospital cage with a heat lamp.

[Sivin]

I had no idea there were such things. How can they be identified by those of us who aren't pros?

Regards,
Sivin

[henryswife]

Hope all is fine with him. I've done things to dogs- cats- rabbits, but birds are soo much harder to hold and sooo strong! Those wings flapping- their feet grabbing everything- and the bitting??
He must of knew that you were helping him. Good baby. (( hugs ))
What if anything did you use to put on the infected area? or just let it be not to bleed or anything?
I guess having so many birds and breeding, you have know what you're doing. Alice

[kerryandgoofy]

It's pretty easy to spot and ingrown feather. The area gets a localized swelling. For example the bird that had the feather cyst/ingrown feather on his thigh had a lump the size of fat black-eyed pea. He had only one quill in there.

The bird where I worked on his tail had 3 quills backed up in 2 different follicles on opposite sides of the tail bulb. The swelling of the tail bulb was obvious and I gave good guess where the problem areas were because I could see 2 black dots next to the skin. These were semi large dots, unlike normal new feathers coming in are sort of look like a black slash mark.

I used Neosporin (sp?) on the area after words. Birdvet has said in the past if you us this stuff you HAVE to make sure you get the kind without steroids.

My friend Julie uses sulfa powder after working on her birds.

Ingrown feathers don't get better by themselves. Only more quills continue to grow/backup in the follicle area and the swelling/infection continue to increase.

It is good to know that this is usually a family genetic trait. Thinking back on my experience, both birds came from the same breeder directly or one generation away.

Alice it wasn't so hard to hang on to the bird. I had his head and front end sandwiched in a washcloth only exposing his rump. I had no head, feet or wings to deal with while I worked.

[Sivin]

"...u HAVE to make sure you get the kind without steroids..."

Kerry, do you otherwise get Superbird???

Sorry, couldn't resist. This is interesting. I don't think such a thing would have occurred to me.
Thank you for this useful information.

Sivin