Gluing on feathers

[starlingqueen]

After Titch had his bad episode and had to be moved to a cage, I've been wondering why it happened. He has since started to grow his tail feathers and no longer ends up on his back on the bottom of the cage.

This brings me to my point. With parrots that pluck there are some people who use donated feather from other birds and glue them onto the plucked bird so they can fly and gain confidence and stop plucking. I was wondering if all those FM buds that have lost feathers and lose balance because of it, could be helped by having feathers glued on to help them?

[OP]

How does one know which feather to glue where? It's a wonderful thought.

[starlingqueen]

Apr 14, 2015 19:55:52 GMT OP said:

How does one know which feather to glue where? It's a wonderful thought.

If it's just a case of balance then the tail feathers would work for FM buds. The people who do this are experts and ask for donations of feathers. They glue on the entire set of wing feathers so the birds can actually fly again. I think there as to be some shaft so the feathers can be fixed to it but in Titches case that wouldn't be a problem as he grows tail feathers but they snap low down because they are weak.

Here's a video I just found.

[starlingqueen]

Here's a bit about replacing clipped wing feathers. It's called imping apparently.

www.sanctuaryfederation.org/gfas/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Imping-Repairing-a-Birds-Damaged-or-Clipped-Wings-Greg-Glendell.pdf

[OP]

It really would be a specialist that would have to do it. Having looked at the first video I wouldn't like to try it myself. I'll have a look at your second link now.

[OP]

I'll leave it to the specialist.
Nice to know it can be done though. Thank you starlingqueen.

[starlingqueen]

It's an interesting concept isn't it? And shows the dedication some people have to help animals.

[OP]

It would be great to see the bird fly. The dedication is phenomenal.

[Marianne Marlow]

How amazing. Obviously left to the professionals, but AMAZING anyway.