Quick question about my parakeet...

[VigCS]

Hi everyone,

Today my parakeet came flying into the room and back to her cage when I heard a thump. I walked into the room and she was standing in the middle of the floor, and when she saw me she tried to fly back to her cage but couldn't. At first I thought her wing was broken, but I then noticed that the feathers necessary for flying were not on the end of her left wing, they must have fallen out. My question is how long do those feathers take to grow back? I hate to see her esentially immobile. She seems fine though. She'll still perch and bite me as hard as she can we I try to ger her to perch on my finger inside of her cage (she's very protective of the cage).

She lives in the same cage as my two cockatiels, they all get along great, although she does tend to boss the birds that are twice her size around :)

Here are some pics of my birds if curious, these pics were taken just before a cage cleaning a few weeks ago...


Polly Prissy Pants the budgie:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a363/vigcs/DSC00428.jpg

Charlie the cockatiel:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a363/vigcs/DSC00427.jpg

Bailey the cockatiel:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a363/vigcs/DSC00426.jpg

Thanks for any responses! I will be asking in a few hours the best way to train cockatiels more whistles.

[sassy3n8fan]

When birds molt they do it once a year, and they only lose a few at a time, until they grow in and then they lose some more. This prevents what you describe, as not being able to fly simply because they are molting their flight feathers, as if they were in the wild they would not be able to get to the safety of a tree. I would not house tiels with budgies. Although budgies are usually the aggressor (as you can already tell by seeing the budgies "bosses them around"), tiels are known to "pick on each other" by going for feathers. If you see a bunch of tiels in the pet store housed together, more than likely you will see some with short, ratty-looking tail feathers. This is the reason. I would take the budgie to the vet so he can take a look at the wing and make sure molting is all that is going on.

[VigCS]

Okay, thanks for the reply. It's a good thing I still have the budgies cage, but in all honesty she's the one who moved herself in with the tiels. One day she would just fly out of her cage and into the tiels cage.

I'll take her to the vet tomorrow to have her looked at.