Blood Feathers

The terminology of a blood feather is used to describe feathers that are in the process of growing, also known as pin feathers. The feather follicle located in the skin of the bird produces a feather much like a hair follicle. The feathers are grown from the base and grown upward. The blood supply is at the base of the feather, but flows up the sheath until the feather has fully matured.

When a blood feather is broken, the blood in the sheath of the feather can flow out the broken end of the feather. Think of a plastic straw as being the sheath. It is very difficult for the blood to form a stable clot at the end of a straw with a large opening. Even though the blood and clotting factors within it are miraculous, it is difficult to bridge that opening. Don’t forget that every time your bird flaps its wings, it will break the clot back-open a lot of the times.

A blood feather that is actively bleeding needs to be removed in the following manner. Using a pair of tweezers or hemostats, grasp the shaft of the feather at the base as close to the skin as possible with the instrument in alignment with the shaft. With your other hand hold the wing or body part and stabilize it in the opposite direction. Slowly pull the blood feather out. This does cause some pain to the bird so make sure the bird in adequately restrained with a towel. Then apply direct pressure to the area where the feather was removed for 10 minutes. This allows the vessel feeding the shaft with blood to have adjacent structures to clot to. Do not use cautery, electrical or chemical, because it will cause irreversible damage to the feather follicle and lead to no future feather growth or feather cysts. You can use cautery on horny structures such as the nails and beak.

Birds can tolerate a 30% loss of the blood volume, 2% of their body weight, before they show subsequent distress. Birds are very efficient in stabilizing their blood pressure after blood loss. They are able to do this by moving fluid from inside tissues (interstial fluid) into vascular spaces (vessels) and arteriolar vasoconstriction (reduction in diameter of vessels).

Hopefully this information will help you the next time you are faced with a bleeding blood feather. Always remember to remain calm, all bleeding will cease at some point.

( John D. Morris, is a doctor of veterinary medicine. Since 2000 he has operated a Small Animal Hospital in Northeast Mississippi. He has a special interest in avian and exotic medicine. )

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