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Trilly is molting, like most of my flock members, and today I found this:




When I got her, in January 2013, her right wing was badly cut, I'd say butchered really. The left was almost intact. Some of her flights were cut in a way that makes me think that she actually bled
Anyway, I don't clip them, so I don't understand why she didn't lose this one during her last moltings. I think she already had 2 moltings here, this is her third.
When she spreads her wings I can see many of the cut ones still in place, I have no idea how many but there are a lot of empty spaces when the wing is all fanned out.
Is it normal for flight feathers to stay for so long?

Some birds molt less often than others. Not molting can sometimes be a sign of a health problem because it takes a lot of energy to make new feathers and a sick bird needs to conserve energy. But in some cases I think it's genetic. Some of Buster and Shodu's sons are slow and infrequent molters but they're very healthy. Squeebis didn't get his mature coloring until he was 15 months old; the average is six months. Henry was almost as bad, getting his mature coloring at 12 months. He offered his head to his mother for preening a couple of years ago and she chopped his crest off, and he still hasn't gotten a new one. He's finally starting to get a little demi-crest and I'm worried that she's going to chop it off again because he was offering his head to her this morning lol.

Poor little Henry! Maybe she thinks he likes a bald head and keeps him that way

Trilly is the babies' mom, and she laid eggs last year too; could this slowing down be due to the egg laying? She had five last year and seven plus three this year. That seem so many eggs to me.
She seems healthy, eats like a horse, is always busy doing her things around, fortunately has also stopped laying eggs last month.
It's difficult to explain, but she seems very "feathery" on the head, long cheek feathers. Maybe that's not normal? She always was a bit of a beardy one but now it's more pronounced.
I have a flock vet check scheduled for end of February, but now I am worried that she might have an underlying condition.

Would it help you to rule out a few problems if I posted a few pictures of her? If so, which parts of the body need to be shown?
Frank, the dad, has been under the weather after the baby feeding etc, and just now has started plumping up again and feeling like his old self. I was a bit worried for him too because he's such a small bird, but it seems that he's recovering now.
Maybe Trilly was overworked too?

No, she just doesn't like being bothered with preening requests. She takes but she doesn't give lol, and when her mate asks for head preening she yanks on his crest and makes him squawk.

Breeding is strenuous work for both parents. The number of eggs Trilly laid isn't excessive, but her ability to stay healthy before and after breeding depends a lot on how good her diet is and whether she's basically a strong individual. If you can give a general description of the diet and also post pictures that show all or most of the birds (especially problem areas) I'll do what I can to give an opinion.

Their diet is as follows:

normal seed mix for cockatiels with added hemp seeds, crushed almonds and walnuts, sesame seeds; sometimes I add chia seeds too and raw grain.
Raw vegetables, mainly romaine, broccoli, carrots, kale, brussels, fennels, beets, cucumber, celery.
Cooked: potatoes and sweet potatoes, peas.
Cooked beans and grains of every kind, mainly brown rice, barley, quinoa, millet, bulghur (they adore bulghur), couscous, amaranth; usually I dehydrate them first but lately I gave them the wet ones too. Lentils.
Sprouts and very sprouted beans and grain, when they grow green and taller like grass the birds like to pick at them.
The occasional cilantro, parsley and basil.
Lately they have been eating more variety of food like eggs, mash, apples, grapes. If one bird eats something, usually everyone follows... Angelina is the ambassador of good food, she is such a healthy eater. Darcy and Keith are almost exclusively seed eaters but I hope they will get more adventurous with time.
They all love oat groats, they would only eat that if they could!
I tried to offer yogurt, they were offended and disgusted lol, maybe I should try to put something sweet in it like honey?
They love bread but I keep them away from it apart from the occasional crumbs.

In UK we don't have a good variety of vegetables, unfortunately. I read that chard is good for them but I have only seen it a couple of times on the shelves.
Every day I throw away a lot of fresh stuff, I think I don't have the right quantities in mind. How big is a portion for a tiel?

Basically they eat what I eat, apart from the seed mix the rest is all food I prepare for myself and give them without salt and oil.
Sometimes I let them have a little bit of oil on the cooked food.

As supplement, just brewers' yeast and milk thistle. I still put Guardian Angel in the water once a week or so.
Mineral blocks, cuttlefish bones.

I am uploading some pictures and will post them asap.

That's a wonderful diet overall, and the one question that I have is whether they're getting enough vitamin D. Plant sources have vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) which works well for humans but birds can't utilize it very well; they need vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) which is difficult to get from food sources. Egg yolk is basically the only natural food source that's suitable for birds. D3 is necessary for calcium absorption so it's very important for the health of breeding hens.

There's an article on providing D3 at http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... hting.html The summary is that unfiltered sunlight is the best source (but hard to provide in the UK). Nutritionally complete pellets provide it, if you're willing to offer them and your birds are willing to eat them. There are liquid calcium supplements that provide it, but watch out for overdoses. Full spectrum lighting can take the place of sunlight if you can find the right bulb, which is harder than you might expect. It's a tough issue, enough to make one bang one's head against the wall.

You could mix a little yogurt with moist foods and hope they don't notice the new flavor that's been added. I give it to my birds this way sometimes and add some brewers yeast because it has a stronger flavor that hopefully overpowers the yogurt flavor.

Right now we have rain all day every day, so unfortunately taking them out is not possible.
My windows are the stupidest windows you can imagine: they are huge, but I can only open a little bit, so basically direct sunlight from the open windows is out of the question.
I was thinking, for when the weather is a bit better, of hanging a small cage outside. That way, if I hang one different bird every day, they will have the direct light.

I live on the first floor so taking them to the garden involves stairs and to be honest, unless I make a backpack-style cage, the idea of running up and down the stairs every day with a cage in my arms is depressing.
The hung cage is in theory a good idea... only problem is that I can already imagine the bird in the hanging cage yelling at volume 11 to be put back inside, and the birds inside yelling in response I don't think the neighbours will be thrilled.
I read the article and probably my best chance is trying with the pellets again. I offered them to Bubu and Yoghi ages ago and they ignored them completely, but maybe now everyone is more flexible food-wise and it might work.

Supplements scare me I would never be able to figure out who is getting them and how much.


This is a bad picture of Trilly




This is Frank 3 weeks ago, he looks less tired now, but still scruffy. He always was scruffy though... My partner calls him Scruffy Beggar, poor my Frank!



I will take better pictures tomorrow, showing the body and face better. Thank you Tielfan!

Frank is adorable! Such a sweet look on his face. His feather condition looks reasonably good, although some of them seem to be hanging down around his feet in an odd way.

The picture of Trilly is kind of blurry so I can't see the feathers you were asking about, but maybe it will be clearer in tomorrow's pictures.

Frank is adorable in his own way... he won't win a beauty contest but has a character grander than life
His feathers are always messed up but fluffy, he looks kind of dishevelled, if that makes sense.
I was concerned when I first got him because he always perches and stands with his legs bent, they are never fully extended, difficult to explain but this is an explanatory picture:




I have never seen him stand with his legs straight. I was afraid that the babies, if his, would have the same problem but they had very strong and long legs.
I have no idea what his problem is; he is fully active, climbs and flies like a fiend so I don't think he is either in pain or disabled in any way.

He is a pearl, I am told, because of the babies and the ghost pearls on his back; he also has a very large white halo around his cheeks, and his chest is the lightest of grey; he has a white patch on his neck and a bit of yellow here and there.




I guess he's a real mongrel
He's as close to an alpha male as a tiel can be, so he can be aggressive, that's amazing because he's tiny tiny! But he's the only one in my current flock who never bit me... also amazing.




His feathers were brownish before his last molt, I was told that happens when they are old so I wasn't worried; but his genetic pool is a real mystery.

These are some pictures of Trilly I took today. She is never still so it's not easy to get a picture that's not blurry.

See how "hairy" her face is? I have never seen such feathery face




These are pictures of the wings; the right wing is the one that was in really bad shape, but she is missing feathers on the left wing too.







Her feathers are all dotted apart from a few that are all white.