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How to Know If Your Cockatiel Has Broken a Blood Feather What a Blood Feather Is Before you can watch out for broken blood feathers, it helps tremendously to know what a blood feather is. Blood feathers are essentially new feathers. All feathers have blood vessels inside the shaft when they first start growing to provide nourishment and help the feather mature. As the feather develops, the blood vessels close off. If you inspect your cockatiel's feathers down near his skin, you can see which ones are still blood feathers because they are the ones that are darker in color, indicating blood inside the quill. When Blood Feathers Break Your cockatiel can be a bit clumsy, especially if he's not used to flying or if he has episodes of thrashing about in the night. Even if your cockatiel is uncommonly graceful, he still can break a blood feather if you keep his wings clipped because there won't be as many non-blood feathers to protect and support the ones that a...

African Grey Cage and Environment African Grey Parrots are very sociable and require a lot of attention and interaction. Thus it is important to make sure that their cage and environment is more than adequate for their housing needs. The cage is a safe retreat or haven for your African Grey Parrot. This is where the bird feels safe and secure, no different than what you feel when you walk into the door of your home. There is food to eat, water to drink and best of all toys to play with! A suitable cage for an African Grey Parrot is at least 2 feet deep by 3 feet wide by 4 feet high (61 x 91 x 122 cm) and has a playpen top with a tray. African Grey Parrots are very active and need a lot of "out" time. It's important to make sure that there are toys both inside the cage and outside in the playpen area to keep your African Grey busy. It is best to get a cage that has horizontal side bars to help these nimble climbers get their exercise as they climb up and...