Finding a broken feather in a mew always makes my heart skip a beat. It might indicate a serious medical emergency. Or it could simply be a sign that the bird is bored. Before I panic, I take time to carefully inspect the feather.
This feather, found in a Great Horned Owl's mew, is immediately troubling. The end of the shaft is jagged with bright red stains. This was a blood feather, named for the shaft's active blood supply during feather growth. Birds have fewer clotting agents in their blood, so when this new feather broke, the wound could lose a good amount of blood. If the bleeding doesn't stop on it's own, we need to intervene.
When I found this feather in Carson's mew this week, I was a little worried about the hawk. Luckily the feather looked clean. Next I inspected the base of the feather shaft. I was relieved to see a neat circle as pictured below, a sign that the feather did not break. It fell off cleanly as part of her annual molt. That means that she likely decided to play with the feather and shred it later. This time, a broken feather was not a symptom of a medical issue. It instead reminded me to provide Carson with more newspaper, cardboard tubes, and egg cartons to shred as a better alternative.
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