FINCHforum

Greetings everyone. I just purchased a nice little spice finch from a major petshop chain and it is almost entirely flightless. Upon inspecting the wing feathers I see that they are basically sticks. Could this be a contageous infection? A result of the poor housing at the shop? Can I do anything to resolve this? Thanks for reading.

I can't imagine such a thing. Unless it is molting and you're talking about pinfeathers?

Can you post a photo?

I think I would contact the pet shop--I know PetsMart guarantees their birds for only 14 days, and you might want to think about returning the bird for another.

well as much as I would have liked to diagnos and aid the guy I decided to exchange him for a society; sadly none of their spices seemed to be in the best condition. No picture unfortunately, but to elaborate on the condition of the feathers the quills extended the full length of a normal wing feather, yet 90% of the blade/veins were gone; what remained looked almost as if they were stuck down by hairspray or some adhesive. Now I seriously doubt hairspray was ever applied to this bird, but its the best way I can describe this unnatural condition. I've seen a fair share of pin feathers and I saw no sign of the protective sheaths seen during molting. Anyways, its sad, hopefully the management will act on it.

Yikes - bad mites?

hi
this may explain a little about feather lice,they actually strip the feathers and just leave the shafts..you have to get rid of the infestation first before the feathers will grow back..i have seen this in canaries and if you hold the feather up to the light you can see little lines going across the feathers and at the end of those lines you will find the lice..they can make birds very ill ..i think the sticky substance is a whole lot of lice gathered like at a rock concert and all having a munch at the feather shaft at the same time you need a special lice spray ...not a mite spray!the people at the place where you got them from need a good roasting!

ken

That's horrible. I'll have to convey this to the manager. I hope the 12 hour window wasn't enough to spread these parasites to the other birds. I guess I'll just have to keep a close eye.

the problem is with most of these big places where they sell birds the staff are clueless as to the care of birds or any other animals for that matter...my local branch of pets at home had to stop selling birds.they where boycotted outside with people carrying banners saying they where unfit to keep birds as they where always in a bad state the rspca got involved and banned them from keeping birds for life as they had no idea how to care for them !

ken