Blood on the Wing and Tail

Bleeding Weaning Chicks

Today, I spotted blood on wings on one of my German rollers. The top photo shows a large area of blood on the wing and on the lower back. The usual reason for the bleeding is a broken growing feather. Growing feathers are full of blood and when broken will bleed large amounts of fresh blood.

After washing the wings and bleeding area with cool water, I found a single bleeding feather pictured in the bottom photo was the blood source. I use cool water to wash the feathers as blood easily washes out in cool water where warmer water creates a blood stain on the feathers. It is amazing that all that blood came from one broken growing feather!

To fix the problem, totally remove the whole bleeding feather including where it is coming out of the skin. I just carefully pull it out. Should it break, the remaining part can be removed with tweezers.

Note: This is another of those attractive and talented German rollers with the special eye mark!!