# Crest Feathers



## AcceptedWalnut (Oct 12, 2011)

Hey, ive tried searching but couldnt find anything related to what i'm worried about.

Basically, buddy finished his first molting a few weeks back but now i've noticed his crest has pretty much gone since then without me noticing any extra feathers in his cage. He's not tame enough to let me touch the feathers to see if they're hard but they look like they've been dipped in wax and left to dry and looking extremely scruffy.

I've tried taking a good enough picture so you can see but it doesn't really show the problem as much although you can still see.

So is this normal or is something wrong?











This is a picture i took not too long ago aswell so you can see the difference from what his crest used to be like.












Thanks


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## DyArianna (Aug 7, 2011)

When a bird molts, the old feathers fall out and new ones start coming in. At the tips of the new feathers will be a whitish to clear casing. These new feathers are called pin feathers. This casing will then break open and the new feather will unfurl. So even though your bird has stopped losing feathers.. he is still going through a molt as new pin feathers appear.


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## AcceptedWalnut (Oct 12, 2011)

Ah thank you, so his crest feathers are perfectly normal and will open up to look normal eventually?

He also doesn't bath himself either so that probably isn't helping much as i can only mist him with a water bottle.


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## JaimeS (Nov 28, 2011)

Yep, they will start looking better. Too bad he doesn't let you touch him, you could help him out some and gently scratch some of that stuff off. It would feel good to him too, he doesn't know what he's missing


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

He probably still has keratin sheaths encasing his crest feathers. They seem to take the longest for the sheaths to fall off because they can't preen their head to remove it.


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