Stuck in Molt?

[Gracie85]

My male canary has been molting for several months now. Just doesn't seem to be progressing very fast, or finishing. Has stopped singing, usually he keeps singing when he molts.

Also, an area, I would describe it as the back of his left shoulder, has grown feathers that curl up and out, so he has a fluffy, messy spot. Is this just from the prolonged molt? when I first got him, his feathers were all fine. After the first molt, he grew one wing feather that sticks straight out at an angle, and that one has always grown back that way (wonder if the breeder had plucked it before passing him to the pet store, as his singing ability easily matches the champion canaries on youtube, always wondered why this bird ended up in a pet store.)

What am I doing wrong, or what can I do to help this guy?

[Ricardo Ronsini]

Hello.

Do you happen to have some pictures of that bird?

What do you feed him?

Does he have access to natural light?

It would be either a hormonal imbalance or a dietary dificiency.

The first usually comes from a genetic cause, and usually is hard to treat, some people recommend iodine.

About his neck, i suspect that what he has in his neck might be a feather cyst.

Regarding his wing, the intern part of the feather is damaged, usually it happens when the bird is a fledgling and the parents pull its feathers because they want to breed again, and if this happens the feathers will grow in the wrong position for the rest of the bird's life, so, it is likely that he had that damaged feather growing in his wing when you brought him home.

[Gracie85]

He is in a room with 34 feet of 4 foot tall windows, however he is on the opposite wall, not in front of a window, and the windows are brand new triple glass, so don't know how much good they do. He has had an avian bulb on top of his cage until it died last week (the fixture, not the bulb). We cover the cages at night or the birds would end up with about an 18 hour day, between sun and house lights, as most of those windows face east and so the sun rises reeeaaaally early (there is a big top half-round one with no curtains at all).

He gets a canary seed mix, and boiled egg, millet, greens, commercial egg food when I don't have the boiled egg ready (he loves it, no one else would eat it so I am slowly giving it to him).

I will check him for a feather cyst in the curly spot. It looks more like one of those neck crests they breed in societies, the feathers are curling up like a ruff, but only in the one spot.

[Stuart whiting]

It seems like yer bird has a feather cyst, there's not a great deal you can do with this, it's also quite possibly done from an early stage in the birds life eaither from bullng parents wanting to breed again or from other young canaries when kept together in a group,

The cyst can be a term what we call " lumps " this is not uncommon in canaries and is basically a cause through in breeding and also breeders consistently pairing buff ( coarse feathered ) birds together,

It is normally small areas on the bird where ingrowning fearhers create a lump and can often appear to look and feel quite loose when holding the bird in the hand,

Lumps and cysts can be removed but if the bird generally appears to be fit and healthy I'd be inclined to leave it,

Most canaries don't really sing that much during the moult and an adult " flighted " canary normally takes upto 12 weeks to complete the moult, youngsters ( first year unflighted ) birds normally take about 6 - 8 weeks,

I've always found that birds kept indoors always seem to take longer and become stuck in the moult,
A lot of the reasons could be not enough air flow within the room, also not enough natural daylight although I'd say you've probably got enough light and the main factor is heat, if the room regularly gets quite warm this can send birds into a lengthy soft moult,

Naturally try to enhance air flow and at all costs avoid any form of heat in the room