I pulled off the my Zebra Finche's Tail Feathers

[chooandchoo]

I am a new finch mom, I bought my finches in October. I have 1 male and 1 female. As I was trying to remove them from their cage to clean it, I grabbed the male's tail on accident (he flew off as i was trying to grab him) and I PULLED OFF HIS TAILFEATHERS I feel like a terrible mom!! Will they grow back? Will it affect his mentality? What can i do to make him more comfortable? He's acting normal but hes spending more time standing at his conch shell. Did I scar him for life? I have the vita-sol multi vitamin drops for birds, should I incorporate it into their diet to speed growth?

They currently are on a pellet and millet diet. Please help!

[finchmix22]

Don't worry. They'll grow back and finches adapt well even with some feather loss. He'll be alright. If you plan on breeding, then you could also give them some hard boiled eggs, crushed with shell and all. That tends to stimulate breeding, so I wouldn't give any eggfood unless you want babies. You could just give crushed eggshells that are boiled in a treat dish.

[Mands]

Don't panic! Every time I have to catch my orange breasts, they drop all their tail feathers. Takes them about six weeks to grow back, sometimes quicker. But, it doesn't affect how they fly or anything, they just look like bob tails for awhile.

[Zebrafincher]

Hi Chooandchoo,

don't worry, as the other people have said, this can happen. I had one of my birds. and he lost most of his tail feathers, some of his wing feathers, and a lot off his backside! The vet said he'd had incomplete moult, and these were just the old feathers falling out. Merl (my star finch) has grown them all back. When I first got him, he was completely bald (on the head) due to being plucked by the other finches in the same cage. He now looks perfectly normal.

Good luck thanks

Zebrqafincher

[mayble]

I had the same thing happen to me just yesterday!
I'd heard of birds dropping tail feathers to avoid or escape capture, but I'd never seen it. Craziest thing - I put him in his new cage and he just left his tail feathers in my hand.
He does look goofy now, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

[chooandchoo]

Thank you everyone!

[chirpy]

My girl lost all her tail the other week.
She has a whole set now! Didn't take her wry long at all ;)


I made sure there was eggshell they always have cuttle bones. I try to always have eggshell in there but they always POOP in it and I can't replace it as often as I should!