Pulling a Blood Feather The most common emergency call avian
vets receive concerns bleeding from broken blood feathers. All
feathers on the body will have a blood supply inside the shaft
that nourishes the feather while it grows, and the blood dries
up after the feather matures. Birds with clipped wings are most
vulnerable to breaking these new blood feathers since they will
be longer than the surrounding trimmed feathers, and may break
when the bird flaps its wings and hits something. Less
frequently, a tail feather or smaller body feather will bleed,
and all of the same principles apply to treating these. Blood
may be splattered on the walls near the cage, or smeared on the
side of the body, but we have never seen a verified case of a
bird dying from a single broken feather. Liver disease may
result in blood clotting and a simple broken blood feather may
result in prolonged, life-threatening bleeding. If your pet
picks at the site, or if bleeding recurs, a veterinarian may
need to assist in pulling the brok