# Ingrown feather...sort of



## bweaz (Aug 1, 2008)

I have an American Show Racer as a pet. She is just the sweetest thing. Like every other pigeon right now, she is in a pretty severe molt. I hate molting season, my birds just look terrible during this time and they are cranky. Anyway, I scooped my pigeon up over the weekend and I noticed what I thought was a growth or something at the top of her leg. So, I flipped her on her back - she didn't like that - and looked at it. It was the weirdest thing, it was just like a pin feather, it had grown nice and tall, except there was unbroken skin covering it. Like the pin feather couldn't break through the skin so it just grew and the skin stretched with it. 

So, I figured I would take her to the vet and have the vet look at it. However, the vet was closed and you know how it is, once you find something like that you just keep looking at it. So, finally, I got up the nerve to "break" the skin at the tip of the pin feather. The next day I looked at it, and more of the feather was projecting out. When I tugged on the feather a little, the whole thing just slid out, it wasn't attached to the bird at all. Sort of when we get an ingrown hair, eventually the hair isn't attached to our follicle any longer. The skin is growing over nicely, no sign of infection. And the feather just fell apart, it was obviously drying up.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the "thing", but unfortunately, I was caught up in the horror of it all - I know, compared to a lot of the stories I have read on this website, it wasn't much of a horror really. 

Has anyone seen this before? I never saw it with my other pigeon and was a little shocked to see something like this, though I can't imagine it is that uncommon.


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## philodice (Sep 30, 2007)

I've seen it on a chicken. It would have just reabsorbed. I've done both let it alone and take it out, seems not to make much difference to the bird.


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