So I've noticed that my Pionus, Dudley, has started acting especially cranky lately, and didn't quite realize why. He hasn't acted sick. Just... mad. More mad than usual. My mom and I came back at the store to find bird seed all over the floor, while my dad was on the computer. Apparently, he was literally trying to throw it at him. He's also been more vocal with his bird gibberish complaining, than usual.

I started wondering if something is wrong, but then I noticed the feathers on the floor of his cage. He's molting. That sure explains a lot.

During that same day, I noticed some pin feathers coming up on Lucy's face. She's just now started showing signs of aggression, as she tried to defend the laptop keyboard from my fingers, just recently, as well as throwing hissy fits when I ask her to step up from a place she doesn't want to leave (I haven't had that roblem in a while, until now). Great. Now we have two grumpy molting birds.

The manikin finches my mom got were shedding some flight feathers on the way home from the bird show, too, so I thought they might be in the middle of their molt, since they didn't look damaged in any way. That means everyone's molting except for-...
Wait a minute. The diamond dove seems to be scratching his face quite frequently, lately (yes, they're able to do that). How odd. He doesn't act sick, and according to the internet, he doesn't show any signs of any known skin conditions for birds. is he molting as well? Ugh.

So my whole flock is molting. That's fun. Are birds even supposed to molt at this time of year, when it's the beginning of fall? I thought it was around spring. It just now started getting cooler, so I would imagine this to be a weird time for birds to replace their feathers.

Dudley gets a bit more crabby and hard to deal with around molting time. He acts more aggressive than usual, and makes even more of a big deal of people being around his cage. He's not too hard to deal with though.

Lucy hasn't been affected much. Other than being a bit more argumentative about having to do things she doesn't want to, her personality hasn't changed much. Well, not in the way most articles I've read describe. She's been acting a little more needy, and has picked up a habit of wanting to come out in the morning before I leave for college (which I don't usually do), and will scream all morning, for me to let her out. I think this started a little before the molt, though, so it might not have anything to do with it. Maybe it's too early in for it to alter her personality.

The Manikins should be fine. They're in a quiet room, and we don't usually bug them too much. Stressful situations might stress them out more than usual though. The diamond dove might be a little concerning though. His species are naturally more flighty than most doves, amd other birds for that matter. He should be fine though... I think. I'm not 100% sure if he's gonna start molting though,

This can't be a coincidence, can it? theyre all molting at the same time. Do a bunch of birds in the same general area milt? Heck, do birds mold in correspondence to their flock mates molting? I find it weird that they may all be molting at the same time,

My 4 seem to molt at the same time, but within their respective species. Cockatiels both molt together, budgies both molt together.

Hm, that's interesting. Are the budgies' molt and tiels' molt close to each other, at least?

I felt the dove's head. He doesn't seem to be growing in any pin feathers, which in a way, I'm glad, and sad about. His feathers have been kinda ragged since I got him. I thought he would soon grow new feathers to replace them. At the same time, dealing with two cranky/stressed out molting birds is better than dealing with three, and it would be better for him to adjust without the stress of molting. So the pros kind of outweigh the cons, here.

Stephanie, do your birds get cranky at all, during their molt? I heard they can get really aggressive, and don't want to have much to do with you, though Lucy hasn't displayed any drastic changes in behavior (yet). I'm wondering if the behavior change varies on bird, or not.

No, not really. Except Beck. He acts really clutzy and stationary.

All my budgies and tiels are molting now. And I do get more hisses in the aviary when I go in early in the morning (when it's still darkish) to feed the birds when I have dayshift.

Milo (tiel) and Bluebelle (budgie) both molt at the same time- they are both molting now. Bluebelle is cage bound, she won't come out of it, so its hard to tell if she is grumpy or not, but Milo seems normal, except for not letting me give him scritches, which he normally loves. So I always figured they molt at the same time. Even JoJo molted with Bluebelle when he was alive. Even my outdoor wild doves are molting, I see feathers all over the place around my yard. Go figure...

The time of molting varies by species, and some species molt twice a year or more. Popular times for it are in the spring after migration (if if it's a migratory species), to replace worn feathers and look good to the opposite sex at the beginning of breeding season. Another popular time is in late summer/fall, to replace feathers that got messed up during breeding season and have good strong feathers for fall migration.

Birds in the same household have an influence on each other which might affect the timing of molt, but my guys don't all do it at the same time. It's more like some will do it now and others will do it later. Some of your birds are new so they haven't had time to develop a group influence, plus they just changed residences which is stressful. Molting takes a lot of energy and adverse conditions will sometimes delay a molt, but this apparently isn't happening with your new birds.

That does make sense. Plus, the breeder I bought the diamond dove from is from California, which might have something to do with him being the only one who's not molting right now, as well. He may start soon, or he may have already molted, I don't know. Considering how ratted his flight wings look, I doubt they've been newly grown in, unless if they got that way from the stress of being moved to Arizona for the bird show.
Not sure where the person with the manikin finches came from, though. It seems they may be close to being done with their molt. Maybe the feathers that fell out on the car ride home were the last of the feathers that needed to come off.

I don't blame birds for being cranky when they molt. Not only does it take up energy, but it probably feels uncomfortable, too, having pins come up through your skin. Probably irritates them to no end. Kinda like when you shave a part of your body, and your skin gets all itchy when the hair starts to grow back? But since the pins are harder than hair, it must feel even worse. Probably sensitive to touch, too.

I think the wild doves here finished their molt not too long ago. I haven't seen any new feathers in the yard for a while.

I didn't expect Lucy start molting around the time Dudley does. This should be her juvenile molt, right? I don't feel very many pin feathers, so it must have literally just started. What comes first? The old feathers falling out, or the new feathers coming in?

Cockatiels typically have their first molt around the age of 6 months, and that's how old she is now. But there can be a huge amount of variation in this, and some of her brothers (Squeebis and Henry) didn't have their first molt until they were 12-15 months old. I think there must be a gene for infrequent molting in the family, which would be advantageous in some situations and not so advantageous in others.

The old feather falls out before the pins emerge. I don't know the exact sequence of events, and the pins might start growing under the skin before the old feather falls out.

Pinfeathers certainly look uncomfortable on a chick getting its first feathers, although the babies don't act like it's bothering them. Look at the chest of the pied chick in this picture, you can see how the flesh has raised up in a ridge.

Well, the molt is starting to take a toll on Lucy's personality already. For whatever reason, she's been especially clingy to my shoulder. Usually, if I need her to get off, she'll step up without and objection. Now, she wants to argue about it, and sometimes back up to the point where she's just hanging on my back.

When I got her out, I put her on top of the diamond dove cage, before I got him out. When I held my had to her for her to step up, she spread out her wings and hissed at me. Definitely the first time she's ever done that to me before.

She's also acting a little more flighty. Sometimes, if I try to get the diamond dove to step up, and he flies around the room, Lucy will decide that it's apparently a good idea for her to start flying too. It gets a little troubling, when you have one bird flying because he doesn't yet understand that you're not going to hurt him, and another bird flying because... I don't know, she felt like it? At least Lucy steps up.