Keep your bird warm during a molt.
Although your bird won’t go naked, she may have some thin spots on her body.
If you can’t keep her room especially warm, you can use heating pads and even heated perches in her cage.
Also, be sure to give your bird plenty of quiet time to keep her from getting too stressed out.
Now is not a good time to take her on vacation or to visit a friend,
go to the vet (unless medically necessary), or show her off to visitors to your home.
Let her have quiet time and do what you can to make her feel secure.
Make sure your bird is getting enough rest.
All birds should be getting at least 9-12 hours of sleep a night, including during a molt.
You may need to cover her cage and darken the room earlier than she’s used to.
How do you groom bird feathers?
Provide your bird with extra humidity during a molt.
Extra bathing and perhaps a humidifier in the room will help her feel more comfortable.
Pin feathers are the new feathers coming in.
They poke through with a blood supply attached, which feeds the feather and helps it grow.
If this blood feather happens to break, it will bleed.
Most feathers, however, will not bleed because they are too small to break.
The only feathers you need to worry about bleeding are the larger flight feathers that grow along the wing. More on that later.
Help your bird preen.
Your bird will take care of her new feathers on her own,
but she may need some help to preen the new feathers that grow on her neck and head.
If she allows you, gently scratch her neck to find the new feathers.
Unless there is a white part to the feather, it is not ready to be preened.
You can gently pinch the white part of the new feather between two fingers to loosen the keratin sheath.
If the feather is not ready (the blood supply is still present), this will hurt and your bird may give you a little nip, so take care not to preen feathers that aren’t ready.
After the blood supply retracts the feather is ready to be preened and to have the keratin sheath gently removed.
Conclusion
Your bird will be able to fly after a molt.
If your bird’s feathers are normally clipped, take extra care during molting to ensure she doesn’t get into trouble.
It only takes a few extra feathers to grow in for her to be able to fly.
Keep a close eye on her flight feathers.
Hi, There and Welcome to BirdsNews.com, is here to help you learn and care about pet birds. and this blog is a journal of everything I’ve learned.
