Blood feathers are the large feathers that have blood supply and usually will have hollowness to them. Basically, if you could shrink down to a Nelwyn or large Lilliputian stature and use a feather as a quill… its probably a blood feather. If you notice that one of these feathers is broken and/or bleeding you will have to pull it out. Have you ever had a hangnail that you tried to pull out and it ended up ripping the skin leading up your finger? Bird skin is very thin. The good news is that blood feathers are usually only in the tail and wings. They may be on the heads of cockatoos too but mainly wings and tail.
If you have to pull a blood feather out, you get your corn starch and clotting powder ready as well as a clean towel, some hydrogen peroxide, a spray bottle of water and some clean paper towel and/or Kleenex and a pair of short nosed pliers that you have specifically for your bird. You need to make sure that it has been cleaned with rubbing alcohol to get rid of the storage oil on it and re-oiled with either cooking oil or Frog Lube which is hands down the best CLR for firearms and all metal tools that can rust. Its also biodegradable, non-toxic and even smells like mint. A great product to have especially if you have firearms , especially full metal or polymer types. You secure the bird in your hands or a towel. Then you position the pliers as close to the base of the feather near the skin as you can. Try to lightly squeeze the pliers on the target area as to get ready to squeeze and pull but not so you touch it which will cause pain to the bird. Sort of like ripping a band-aid off. Then grab the affected area with your other hand as best you can and apply a light pinching pressure to the skin. This part might not be possible but do it if you can. This is similar to when the nurse gives you a shot in the arm, they squeeze the skin a bit before they put the needle in to sort of dull the nerves for the prick. Then pull and possibly pull and twist the affected feather out and be prepared to drop the pliers on the table or a surface in case bleeding starts. Put the corn starch on it and apply pressure and pinch pressure if needed to help stop the bleeding. If it persists or is flowing particularly badly, apply the clotting powder.
Once the clotting has taken effect and there is no more bleeding, either take a paper towel lightly soaked in hydrogen peroxide, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide with the tiny hole/squirt cap (if you find one, simply keep using it for other hydrogen peroxide bottles as they usually have a universal sized mouth opening and the squirt ones are sometimes hard to come by) or a small spray bottle that I’ve recently seen and CAREFULLY apply it to the affected area. If you use the squirt bottle or the spray bottle, use a separate paper towel to shield the rest of the bird from the liquid onslaught. Hydrogen peroxide isn’t necessarily good to be ingested but since birds are small, minute amounts of things can harm them. Then, after about 10-30 seconds depending on how calm the bird is, take one the same 3 vectors or delivery systems of water and rinse the hydrogen peroxide off the bird. This doesn’t matter as much with water whether you spray, squirt or use soaked paper towel, Just rinse it as best you can and pat dry. The bird will be skittish for a few minutes but they usually surprisingly calm down and are back to normal relatively fast. You will need to keep an eye on them because animals will pick at their wounds. Hank one time had Larry (or Larri since its now a she) bite his knee and it had a scab he kept picking at and we had to keep cleaning it. Luckily it got better but that could have easily turned into a vet bill.