zeba - a 14 yr old DYH has been going through a slight molt. he has been losing some of his tail feathers and i have noticed that instead of pulling out the entire feather, he snips it off (see the pictures attached).

i know that his tail feathers are molting because first i would see him walking around with a tail feather kinda hanging down, and then i see the snipped tail feather lying at the bottom of his cage.

my question is, is this something that i should be worried about? what about the shaft part of these feathers? will they come out on their own?

i have another amazon, but i have only found completely molted feathers (shaft and all)...nothing like this...

thanks

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yes, they will come out on their own. they will naturally moult if Zeba doesnt pull them.
Stirling snaps feathers off....but that is my clue he is frightened of something or extrememly unhappy.
My zons never did that.

well, thats good to know that they will come out on their own...what is a little disturbing to me is that he might be unhappy or frightened by something. usually amazons (at least from what i know) do not often get to the point of plucking unless they are in a very unhappy state for a while or its something quite traumatic.

the only thing that has happened that may have put some stress on zeba is his move from the bedroom (quarantine) out into the living room with my other birds and my husband. this happened about 2 weeks ago and i found these feathers maybe a week ago.

it seems that zeba is happy, but i will keep a closer eye on him.

thanks lisa.

I've seen a few feathers like that over the years. Several of Ollie's tail feathers I would find in the grate looking just like that. I've just always attributed it to her playing too rough and breaking them. It hasn't happened in awhile though.

well, zeba does play a little rough in his cage sometimes so his tail feathers do look a little tattered...plus with the weather as beautiful as it is right now (in northern central california), it will probably get worse because of the travel carrier.

these feathers just look more like a clean snip than from rough-housing...

zeba unfortunately doesn't like to play much with his toys (although he is starting to love the bird kabob!) so im wondering if he is getting a little stressed when he has no humans to interact with...i think im going to have to buy a timer for the tv.

your welcome. Let us know how it goes.

just dont put the tv to animal planet.
My guys get freaked out with certain animals on tv.
Emma hates Lemiers(sp) and meercats.
she screams and flies away.
Stirling HATES dinosaurs. He too will fly off and scream.
Sydney doesnt pay much attention to anything. He;s more interested in whats goin on in the bathroom!!!!
So you wouldnt want Zeba to be frightened and not be able to get away

lol, whats going on in the bathroom???

good point. what do you think about cartoon network?

He broke them and then he snipped them off because they were bothering him

John

what makes you think this? i am very interested to hear because this is definitely plausible...this amazon doesn't think very highly of my husband and he would fan his tail and climb all over his cage, therefore his tail looks a little tattered.