Losing tail feathers

[sweetiebird]

Im new on here and I have a problem. When I looked in my sun conure's cage today there was a pile of tail feathers laying in the corner. When I saw them I freaked out. She has never plucked before, and in the 5 months I have had her she has not lost many feathers, or more than a couple bigger feathers. I think she is about 8 years old. There were seven tail feathers in the pile and there was no blood on them. It looks like she only has two of the most outer tail feathers left. One on each side. Please tell me that this is normal when a bird is molting!

[Scritch]

I've never known a bird to lose that many tailfeathers at once in a normal molt, but... well birds do strange things sometimes. Look at the base of the dropped feathers -- do they come to a point or do they look chewed off? If they're molted they *should* end in a fine point where they naturally dropped from the body... but some birds do chew the tips of their molted feathers, just for fun. But if they're chewed/frayed at the tips or look broken off, that's a sign that maybe she got rid of them on her own. If she doesn't mind, have a look at her rear and see if you can spot any feather stumps still attached to her body -- because tailfeathers are so firmly attached, most birds chew them off at the base, leaving a small portion, rather than actually pluck them out.

Another possibility is that maybe something scared her and she panicked and fluttered against the cage bars hard enough to break the tailfeathers. It happens, sometimes. Or, do you have any other birds or pets in the house that might have grabbed her tail through the bars? Most plucking starts with the chest or legs, so my first guess would be that this is not plucking... but no guarantees... like I said, birds do strange things sometimes!

[sweetiebird]

They are all to a point. They were all pointed the same way and in a little pile in the back corner of the cage. Nothing could have got to her to pull them.

[tielfan]

Could her tail have gotten caught on something? Birds can release their tailfeathers to escape from a predator, and many a surprised owner has been left holding a handful of tailfeathers when they grabbed their bird by the tail to stop it from leaving.