A good excuse for being late for class
I'm enrolled in a summer class that runs from 8 am - 10 am up at Slippery Rock University, which is about 45 minutes from where I live, so I've been leaving the house around 7 am every day for the past three weeks. Generally in the morning I take Pixie (U2) downstairs from her sleep cage (she sleeps in our room so she can go to bed before the rest of the household turns in for the night), change food and water dishes over, set up the mash/mulch so that my husband can give the birds their cooked food for the day when he gets up, and then uncover Marlette (YNA) and give her a few almonds (Pixie gets her almonds at bedtime).
This morning, I uncovered Marlette to find a dozen wing feathers - mostly primaries and secondaries from her left wing, with a few big coverts - at the bottom of her cage! I checked her out, and while she wasn't happy about me messing with her wing, she has full range of motion and no obvious blood or injuries. A few of the feathers that came out were recently molted in, one still had the very smallest bit of live blood supply still at the base of the shaft. The bloodfeather that's grown in about 50% was fine, as was the outermost primary, but still... what a shock to find, and what a shock for her!!
There was no obvious clue as to what happened, all of her toys are still hanging in the same positions they've been in for the last few weeks, and there's no blood anywhere to show that she might have gotten caught up on something. It rained pretty good last night and may have thunderstormed (if it did, I slept through it), so I have a feeling that she got startled, flapped, and got her wing stuck in the bars of the cage. I'm going to go over the cage with a fine-toothed comb when I get home this afternoon and make sure there's nothing that I missed this morning, but... wow.
I called the vet just to see if they wanted to check her out, and they said not to worry about bringing her in unless she starts showing problems. My husband watched her all morning for me, and said she was eating, pooping, playing and drinking like normal, but stretching her wing out a lot more than normal (birdie yoga style). I'm sure that she's sore after losing all those feathers, poor girl. The next couple of weeks will be fun while she grows in new wing feathers... she'll be getting as much nutritious, calorie-dense food as I can pack into her (not that it'll be a problem with an amazon, after all).
This morning, I uncovered Marlette to find a dozen wing feathers - mostly primaries and secondaries from her left wing, with a few big coverts - at the bottom of her cage! I checked her out, and while she wasn't happy about me messing with her wing, she has full range of motion and no obvious blood or injuries. A few of the feathers that came out were recently molted in, one still had the very smallest bit of live blood supply still at the base of the shaft. The bloodfeather that's grown in about 50% was fine, as was the outermost primary, but still... what a shock to find, and what a shock for her!!
There was no obvious clue as to what happened, all of her toys are still hanging in the same positions they've been in for the last few weeks, and there's no blood anywhere to show that she might have gotten caught up on something. It rained pretty good last night and may have thunderstormed (if it did, I slept through it), so I have a feeling that she got startled, flapped, and got her wing stuck in the bars of the cage. I'm going to go over the cage with a fine-toothed comb when I get home this afternoon and make sure there's nothing that I missed this morning, but... wow.
I called the vet just to see if they wanted to check her out, and they said not to worry about bringing her in unless she starts showing problems. My husband watched her all morning for me, and said she was eating, pooping, playing and drinking like normal, but stretching her wing out a lot more than normal (birdie yoga style). I'm sure that she's sore after losing all those feathers, poor girl. The next couple of weeks will be fun while she grows in new wing feathers... she'll be getting as much nutritious, calorie-dense food as I can pack into her (not that it'll be a problem with an amazon, after all).