The feathers tell all

The parakeets involved: Cumulus, left; possible victim. Blu, right; possible suspect 

     Earlier today, one of my sisters asked if she could have one of the two tail feathers that were shed at the bottom of the parakeet cage. I'd said sure. The issue fell from my mind for a little while. Later, however, I started to think that something might be wrong. I did know that my parakeets were molting and there were cute little feathers in and around the cage. Then I looked into the cage, and one of my birds, the newer one named Cumulus, had only the shorter tail feathers left. That's when I started researching to get a better picture of what was going on...

Exhibit A - Feathers collected

Molting

     As I said before, I know parakeets molt. Who owns a bird and doesn't know about molting? I'd gotten worried because most of the feathers I'd seen in previous molting periods were nice little contour -- short feathers that are half fluffy and half stiff -- and down feathers. (ALL fluffy!) There were some wing and tail feathers here and there, but nothing like today. There were at least three tail feathers, all from the same bird.

Exhibit B - Close-up of most bloody feather

Blood Feathers

     When I found the two feathers on the floor of the cage, both had blood on or in them. In the picture, the one that's mostly black had a little blood on the tip, or calamus, but the tip of the feather on the right was filled with blood, along with this clear goop that came out when I squeezed the end. My panic alarm was beginning to sound. I went right to the computer and found out about "blood feathers." These are the feathers that grow in to replace the feathers lost when a bird molts. These are also dangerous feathers to lose or to have pulled out! This is because the feather is getting blood pumped into it through the shaft, the long middle part, to grow. Breaking the feather at this point is kinda like cutting a blood vessel, except unlike our blood, bird blood doesn't clot as fast, so the poor parakeet can bleed to death. What's weird is that the blood in the tip of the feather in the picture was still fluid, and Cumulus appeared fine. At least, that's the message I got from Cumulus's running away from the camera when I took photos.

Exhibit C - The cagemates aren't to nice

Fighter Fowl

     More searching revealed that sometimes birds pull out their feathers if they:

• Have parasites (but that's rare)
• Have feather follicle inflammation (what a mouthful!)
• Itchiness
• Pain inside the body
• Have skin inflammation
• Have heavy-metal poisoning
• Are malnourished
• Are anxious or bored
• Or fight with the other bird they live with

I am not the best parakeet owner, but I have noticed that the cagemates don't always get along, especially when food is involved. They threaten to bite each other. They shove each other off the bar. They yell. And then, sometimes, they chirp normally, as if talking, yell once or twice, then go back to their original volume. These birds are also clever. More than once they have unhooked their bathtub, dumped it out, and dragged it all the way to the patch of cage floor under the food holder, presumably to catch seeds. So, Blu might have been just smart enough to wait to pull some feathers until Cumulus was molting and he could do the most damage.
    Okay, so maybe it's not that, but I'm pretty sure I haven't fed my pets anything that had heavy metals lately. More likely, the birds were bored.

Anyway... 

    Since Cumulus seems fine, there probably isn't much to worry about, but I learned a lot of things in my research. Here are a couple sites I visited:

Where I learned the parts of a feather, and more.

About blood feathers

     Do you have any tips for calming down two caged birds and keeping them from fighting? Have any questions or comments about the parakeets? Please tell me in the comments below.