FINCHforum

so today I inheritede a baby love bird whos parents rejected it by ripping a dime size patch of feathers off the back of its head. It's been bleeding but stopped.I've been told by one bird expert to put Neosporin on it and by another expert to just leave it alone and let it air dry. please tell me what's safe to put on it injuries? I would hate to lose it to infection.

I'd leave it alone.

Finchaholic
Baby Lovebirds.... 'sigh'... that sure brings back memories.
Quite a few years ago, my crazy Mama Peanut, decided that it would be a good idea to rip all the feathers of the head and back of her two infants in the nest. Then she proceeded to peck them, stopped feeding them, and wouldn't allow her mate to feed them either. Psycho Mom.
It was a horrible situation and I ended up removing parents and hand feeding the two daughters every two hours for what seemed like forever. One girl lived for eleven or twelve years, the other passed at the ripe old age of eighteen years.
Sorry for rambling on...
Anyway, my babies feathers grew back without any medical intervention. I would clean spot gently and allow it to heal, unless it appears to be hot and infected. In short order you should start seeing some growth taking place and before you know it a full head of feathers.
Are you hand feeding? Or is baby able to feed itself?
Goodluck and best wishes. Lovebirds are nice little companion birds if a bit noisy.

Is the skin damaged?

I would ensure the skin is clean.
If the skin is broken, I might put a very thin coat of ointment on there after cleaning him up. But a very thin coat, as you don't want gobs of ointment mucking up the feathers, as they can clump up, making it difficult to stay warm. If you happen to have antibiotic cream, that's actually even better since there's no risk of the ointment mucking up the feathers.
And I'd only do that if I had the bird out to clean him up. I wouldn't catch him just to apply ointment/cream unless there was an obvious bite wound (they're very prone to infection) or signs of an infection (redness, swelling, pus, etc.)

Broken blood feathers can bleed quite a bit, just like the quick of a dog or cat's nail. There's no elasticity in the feather to cinch up around the blood supply. So you just pluck it and it stops straight away because skin naturally compresses the blood supply, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
Anyways, I guess my point is that he could bleed without any injury to the skin, which is where the primary risk of infection exists.

thanks for all the great information. Today I stopped at feathered follies , a bird store where they specialize in hand feeding. I'm so glad I did. They gave me some veterinarian prescibed medicine to put on his head and a lot of information on how to hand feed him correctly. I hadn't realized how many things I was doing wrong. Now he has a better chance of surviving with the information I received.

Finchaholic
Goodluck with Baby.

Update:
So after a week of hand feeding, he was to thin and losing more weight. Unfortunately, I had never handfed before and working 2 jobs, was messing with his strict feeding schedule. Little "Mango" was starting to wean himself but not eating enough real food to make up for the lack of formula.
One of the wonderful girls at the local bird store took pitty on me and offered to take over the job and help him through this difficult weaning stage. She has handfed many birds. He is doing very well and I cant wait for him to come home. I can never thank her enough for helping me save my little Mango.

That's great news!!! So glad Mango is hanging in there and that you were able to find help. Best of luck with your little one

Aw, I'm so happy to hear that Mango is doing well!
How wonderful for the girl at the pet shop to offer her assistance. So kind.

Handfeeding is TOUGH. It's truly exhausting. I struggle and I work at home. I can't imagine trying to swing that with two jobs!

I can't wait for little Mango to come home to you, all weaned, happy, healthy and ready to start living life!

I'd love to see a photo whenever you get a chance. I bet he's a cutie pie! Lovebirds are among my favorites. Such sweeties.

You were so lucky to have the girl at the bird store offer to take over the feeding. It probably saved his life. A great store to support. Good luck with little Mango.