Brad on Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:34 amI woke up around noon today and went down to the bird room to clean like I normally do upon arising from my coffin. I get down to the bird room and on Eggbert and Lucy's side of the room I see blood ALL OVER the floor! 
Foot prints tracking through the blood from one corner of the room to the other! It looked like an attack or massacre basically. 
I quickly see that both birds are in their nest box and seem fine so I start to investigate the source of the blood. I pick up and inspect both pigeons and both seem fine, then I notice that Eggbert's tail feathers have a nasty clump of coagulated blood on them. I inspect further and see that he's broken a blood feather on one of his newly growing tail feathers which is obviously the source of all the blood. What a mess!
The bleeding has stopped and he's fine so I start scrubbing the floor to clean up all that blood drippings and tracks. Then I start on his tail. I clip away the feathers matted in blood, pull some new feather sheaths off while I'm down there...then it's time for a forced bath! I take him upstairs to the laundry room and start to cleanse the area. I soak his tail area good and get things warn, wet and free from the matting. He seems to enjoy this. no doubt he would!
He's cleaned up, tail and lower body a bit wet, but all is fine and the blood has stopped flowing. I felt so sorry for him but it just goes to show us all that things can happen that we least expect. I have no idea how the blood feather got broken, but at least it stopped on it's own and the blood loss seemed & looked worse than it was.
If anyone ever runs into a similar situation and you don't know what to do, apply regular flour to the wound or feather shaft to stop the bleeding. If you are more prepared a styptic pencil will do nicely. Pigeons are very hardy and tough birds, but you would want to stop and prevent further bleeding if you can and as quickly as you can.
Foot prints tracking through the blood from one corner of the room to the other! It looked like an attack or massacre basically. I quickly see that both birds are in their nest box and seem fine so I start to investigate the source of the blood. I pick up and inspect both pigeons and both seem fine, then I notice that Eggbert's tail feathers have a nasty clump of coagulated blood on them.
I inspect further and see that he's broken a blood feather on one of his newly growing tail feathers which is obviously the source of all the blood. What a mess! The bleeding has stopped and he's fine so I start scrubbing the floor to clean up all that blood drippings and tracks. Then I start on his tail. I clip away the feathers matted in blood, pull some new feather sheaths off while I'm down there...then it's time for a forced bath! I take him upstairs to the laundry room and start to cleanse the area. I soak his tail area good and get things warn, wet and free from the matting. He seems to enjoy this. no doubt he would!
He's cleaned up, tail and lower body a bit wet, but all is fine and the blood has stopped flowing. I felt so sorry for him but it just goes to show us all that things can happen that we least expect. I have no idea how the blood feather got broken, but at least it stopped on it's own and the blood loss seemed & looked worse than it was.
If anyone ever runs into a similar situation and you don't know what to do, apply regular flour to the wound or feather shaft to stop the bleeding. If you are more prepared a styptic pencil will do nicely. Pigeons are very hardy and tough birds, but you would want to stop and prevent further bleeding if you can and as quickly as you can.
Hope all is well with Eggbert now. 
I have always used flour to good effect. 
