# Cockatiel's Tail Won't Grow



## Taffy (Jun 9, 2008)

This is a problem Taffy has had for a while now. She breaks her tail feathers off by being silly and such but they don't seem to be growing back! She does have some but they are all broken and look bad. My Mum commented today how they don't grow back. 

They have grown back but it seems to take ages and she seems to keep breaking them! I don't know why her tail feathers take ages to grow, the same thing happened to my Princess Parrot once but she grew all of them back and has had no problems since. My Budgie has had no problems with this.

I don't know if you could give me any tips, there may be nothing that can be done but I thought I would post it here anyway. Her tail is only short and has been for a couple months now, or more. 

Thanks for taking the time to read about my problem!


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## sweetrsue (Jul 8, 2008)

Calcium, Calcium, Calcium. How many times have you heard that tiresome phrase? It's for good reason though. I don't know if Taffy likes Cuttle bones or mineral block but sometimes the birds I know need it aren't getting enough. Have you tried vitamin drops in thier water? If you could find something high in calcium it should help with a molt. They need extra calcium when they are forming feathers. They problem with broken feathers is they won't regrow ''till they fall out naturally. You can expect 6 months between molts so if Taffy is sporting broken feathers that just came in...they're going to be there for a while.


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## Taffy (Jun 9, 2008)

Cuttle bone, no she doesn't really like it. I bought them some but they barely look at it. As for vitamin drops, yes, I have given them a fair bit of that in the last six months. I shall start giving her some more of that then. Thank you for the advice.


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## xxxSpikexxx (Jul 30, 2007)

I have heard that vitamin drops can promote bacteria growth faster in water. Mabey you could change your water more often or scrape cuttle bone over Taffy's food. Iam sure he will have some beautiful tail feathers in no time


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## spike's mom (Aug 21, 2008)

If your teil won't eat the cuddle bone you could try scraping a little everyday onto her seeds its soft and easy to do I do this for my bigger birds because they destroy a whole cuddle bone in seconds if I put it in their cage. you can also boil and dry eggshells and grind them into a powder and and put some into their soft foods or sprincle them onto their seeds its easy to get their calsium levels up fairly quick youll also have to make sure they get some natural sunlight or some d3 of some sort so that they can motabalize the calcium in their bodys feeding them calcium is the easy part. grapes are a good source of magnizium which help with calcium motabaliation also eggs also it could be the size of the cage if its to small she may be breaking her feathers before they start to grow. I got my Teil before it was even weaned and so I put him in a smaller cage and his tail was always short because he would break the feathers as soon as they got to long and then he would pull them out and have to start again. As soon as I moved him to his adult cage within 2 weeks he had the most awesome tail and feathers his tail is six inches long now.


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