Have you noticed more fallen feathers on the floor and inside the cage than usual?

Perhaps you’ve noticed your cockatiel becoming a bit “spikey” around their head and neck area.

These are all signs that your cockatiel is molting.

Molting happens to all bird species and is a natural occurrence.

In this article, you’re going to learn everything there is to know about molting in cockatiels, such as the full molting process, heavy molts, pin feathers, first molt, and how you can assist during the process.

Quick Navigation:

• Why Do Cockatiels Molt?
• When Do Cockatiels Molt?
• Cockatiel First Molt
• Cockatiel Full Molting Process Explained
• How YOU Can Help The Molting Process
• Is Your Cockatiel Molting Or Plucking
• Cockatiel Molting Behavior
• Sources

Why Do Cockatiels Molt?

The whole purpose of a molt is for a bird to replace old feathers with new ones.

Without regular molting periods, a cockatiel would become scruffy and their feathers wouldn’t look as clean.

Molting ensures a cockatiel’s feathers stay fresh, shiny, and hygienic throughout its life.

When Do Cockatiels Molt?

Cockatiels will molt feathers during the entire year.

Throughout the year, they’ll gradually molt flight feathers, tail feathers, and down feathers.

Apart from their gradual molts, cockatiels will go through a heavy molting period once or twice a year where they’ll lose many more feathers at once.

A heavy molt will often last for several weeks.

After a full year, all feathers on the cockatiel’s body would have been molted and replaced.

Wild cockatiels typically go through their heavy molting periods during the warm seasons of spring and fall.

Warmer weather has been proven to trigger molts in birds.

However, since most pet cockatiels are not exposed to seasonal lighting and temperatures, the time of a heavy molt could vary between birds and households. According to VCA Hospitals, exposure to varied light cycles (as most pet birds are) can lead to irregular molts.

It’s also stated that this isn’t damaging to their health, but is simply irregular.

A Cockatiel’s Very First Molt – Before & After The First Molt

A cockatiel will start their first molt between 6 – 12 months of age.

When a young cockatiel molts, they shed away their baby feathers.

This first molt will often cause the crest to grow longer and their body colour to change, the colour they change to will be their adult colours.

Female cockatiels, however, will often keep their juvenile colours through adulthood.

Wild-type baby cockatiels start with a grey head and a short crest.

The most common colour change will be the head changing from grey to yellow.

Check out this before and after photo of a cockatiel’s first molt:

As you can see, the head changed from juvenile grey to yellow, indicating a male cockatiel.

After this first heavy molting period, a cockatiel will continue to go through heavy molts once or twice a year.

Cockatiel Full Molting Process Explained

In this section, I’ll be explaining the entire molting process so you know exactly what’s happening to your cockatiel while they’re losing feathers.

You’ll learn everything from when the feather is first molted to when a new feather is fully grown.

The process of growing feathers takes around 10 weeks.

That’s 10 weeks per individual feather.

All feathers start off as blood feathers…

Blood Feathers – Molting Process

About a week after a feather has molted out from the cockatiel’s body, a new feather will start growing in its place.

During this early stage, it is called a blood feather.

Blood feathers start out as little red spikes emerging from where the old feather used to be. You likely wouldn’t see it as they’re hidden under the other fully grown feathers that surround it. However, you can probably feel the tiny spikes when scratching your cockatiel.

Since I couldn’t find an image of a blood feather, here’s a picture I drew to show what it looks like:

Hope you like the little sketch I did.

The reason it’s called a “blood feather” is because it’s connected to the bird’s blood supply.

If the blood feather breaks, it will bleed.

You will need to give the cockatiel immediate medical attention if this happens as they can die from blood loss. What protects the blood from breaking out and bleeding is called the “keratin sheath”.

Keratin Sheath – Molting Process

The keratin sheath can be described as a waxy shield that protects all developing feathers.

It protects the developing blood feathers but then slowly diminishes as the feathers grow.

Keratin proteins also build a parrot’s beak, nails, and feathers.

Our hair and nails are also built from keratin.

Maybe we aren’t so different from our feathered friends after all.

So what does a keratin sheath look like?

You likely know keratin as the white dandruff material that occasionally falls from your bird’s body.

The sheath will become loose and fall when the growing feather no longer needs protection.

When birds preen each other, they’re helping each other remove loose keratin sheaths.

The keratin sheath is absolutely essential during the blood feather stage and cannot be removed.

If the keratin sheath breaks too early, the blood feather will bleed.

A few weeks after the blood feather develops, the keratin sheath will poke through and become visible on their feathers.

It’ll stick out like a little white spike that is known as a “pin feather”.

Cockatiel Pin Feathers – Molting Process

It’s called a pin feather because the emerging keratin sheath looks like a little white pin.

When you notice a pin feather emerging, that’s an indicator that the feather is about halfway through the growth process.

Here’s an image of a pin feather emerging from my cockatiels crest:

He recently molted and you can see the pin feather growing in on his crest.

Pin feathers are pointy and sensitive for cockatiels, so be sure to scratch gently around them.

Don’t push the pin feather towards where it’s growing from, this will annoy your bird.

End Of A Cockatiels Molting Process

As the feather begins to grow longer, fluffier, and stronger, the keratin sheath will start to diminish as it’s no longer needed.

This will leave your cockatiel with loose keratin bits throughout its body.

Apart from their heads and necks, cockatiels can mostly remove the keratin themselves.

You and other birds will help remove the pin feathers from their heads when they become loose.

With the keratin sheath removed, the previously encased feather will expand and become fluffier.

It’ll then become another fine addition to your cockatiels feather collection.

The whole process we went through was for just a single feather.

All feathers will go through this process:

Blood feather > Keratin sheath > Pin feather > Expanded feather > Fully grown feather

Again, this is a 10-week process for each feather.

Lots of feathers go through this process at the same time during heavy molting periods.

How YOU Can Help Your Cockatiel Molt

Molting is a stressful and uncomfortable time for birds, but there are things we need to do that can help our feathered friends:

• Providing more nutrient-rich foods

• Bathing them more often

• Scratching pin feathers (gently)

By doing these things, we are helping our cockatiels during their stressful molting period, which they’ll greatly appreciate.

The sections below will elaborate on how exactly you should do these 3 helpful things.

Providing More Nutrient-Rich Foods

Nourishing foods are an important part of a cockatiel’s overall diet.

However, they are even more important during heavy molting periods due to the process being so demanding on the bird’s body.

Losing and regrowing feathers is really tough on cockatiels…

To give them the resources needed to properly molt, you’ll need to provide more of the following nutrients:

• Calcium

• Protein

A parrot’s body primarily uses these 2 nutrients while growing new feathers.

Calcium

Calcium is best provided to parrots through a cuttlefish bone:

Certain vegetables also contain high amounts of calcium:

• Parsley

• Kale

• Endives

• Mustard greens

• Spinach

• Beetroot greens

• Brocolli

• Green beans

For cockatiels to absorb the calcium from these sources, they need to regularly be receiving vitamin D and D3.

D vitamins are given to your bird from natural sunlight.

As long as you take your cockatiel outside regularly, calcium intake shouldn’t be a problem.

Cuttlefish bones with a few extra calcium-rich veggies mixed into their diet should satisfy their calcium needs.

Protein

As well as calcium, cockatiels need a bit more protein while molting.

Good sources of protein include:

• Cooked eggs

• Very small amounts of chicken, beef, and lamb.

• Parsley

• Broccoli

Remember, you only need to increase the protein intake slightly, too much protein isn’t good for birds.

More Bathing Opportunities

Bathing will help your cockatiel clean themselves from loose keratin sheaths.

It’ll also help relieve some of the discomfort caused by pin feathers.

There are many different ways to bathe a cockatiel, but the one that works best for me is misting them with a spray bottle.

Cockatiels prefer lukewarm water when bathing, so make sure it’s not too hot or cold for them.

Scratching Your Cockatiels Pin Feathers

Cockatiels can preen most areas of their bodies with no problems.

However, they cannot preen their own heads… Obviously.

It’s completely up to their companions (you and other birds) to help preen the feathers around their heads and neck. When scratching, be careful not to push the pin or blood feather towards the bird’s skin.

This will hurt them and they’ll likely make a screeching sound to signify that pain.

It’s not a serious injury, but they don’t like it.

The best way to scratch a cockatiel is by gently grinding their feathers between your fingers. By doing this, you’ll be removing any loose keratin that may still be stuck to their feathers.

Scratches are greatly appreciated by parrots who are molting.

Is Your Cockatiel Molting or Plucking?

Molting, preening and plucking.

Many bird owners often confuse these 3 similar-looking behaviours.

I remember getting a bit worried when my cockatiel had his first molt.

Although molting and plucking look similar, they’re very different.

Molting is a natural occurrence in parrots while feather plucking often indicates a problem.

One of the most obvious signs of plucking is bald patches over the bird’s body.

The image below is a cockatiel that plucked its feathers out from stress.

(Don’t worry, he has since recovered from feather plucking)

Cockatiels who are simply molting will not develop bald patches.

If you aren’t seeing any bald patches or aggressive preening from your bird, there likely isn’t a problem.

Book an appointment with your avian vet if you believe your bird is feather-picking.

Cockatiel Molting Behavior

During a heavy molting period, you may notice behavioural changes in your cockatiel.

The most noticeable changes include:

• Preening more often

• Aggressive behaviour

• Decreased activity and energy

• Less chirping

These are all normal molting behaviours for cockatiels.

As mentioned, molting is mentally and physically taxing for cockatiels.

They use almost all of their energy on growing new feathers that they simply don’t have the energy to do other fun activities.

They often don’t accept too much affection either, besides the occasional scratch.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do about their lack of energy.

The best thing we can do is respect and understand the fact that this is a difficult time for them. If they want to be left alone for an afternoon nap, we should respect that.

When your cockatiel notices you respecting their boundaries, they’ll greatly appreciate you.

They’ll let you know in their own time when they want affection.

This was a long article, I hope you now understand the full process of molting and how demanding it is on cockatiels. The Love Of Pets channel over on YouTube also has a highly informative video of bird molting if you want to learn more:

Sources

• https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/molting-in-birds
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150211123608.htm
• https://www.cockatielcottage.net/feathers.html
• https://www.cockatielcottage.net/molting.html
• https://www.thesprucepets.com/bathing-your-bird-390665
• https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/questions/how-do-i-know-if-my-cockatiel-is-molting-or-plucking/