My Quaker

Question
When we left our home tonight my kids accidentally left the 1 of the Parrot cages latches un latched and he escaped. The parrots wings are ok and he is acting alright but our kitten pulled alot of his feathers out, Is there anything we can do to help him heal or his feathers to grow back quicker?

Answer
hi. thanks for your question. i am sorry to hear that that happened.  you and your parrot are very lucky that there wasn't any further damage done besides his feathers being pulled out.  knowing that you have another pet in the home, i urge you to please be more careful in the future as even the friendliest of dogs/cats can kill a pet bird simply out of curiosity. additionally, incidents like this have been known to terrify birds into shock or death. perhaps invest in a childproof latch (depending on the age of your child, this could be something as simple as a twist tie to something like a padlock) so as to prevent this. i would also suggest placing the parrot somewhere where the cat cannot get to it...perhaps another room where the door can close or the cat cannot reach. reason being, your cats interest in your bird has piqued and now that he has interacted with the bird, it will only get worse.  your cat prowling around his cage may remind him of this incident and cause him stress from fear.
in regards to helping his feathers to grow back, there really isn't anything that can speed up the process. i would check to make sure that there are no wounds on the exposed areas and if so, take your bird to the vet for treatment. if it is only missing feathers, your birds body will replenish them in time. when a feather is removed or molted out, the follicle is stimulated to create a new one. you may notice "pin" feathers in those areas of regrowth that look sort of spikey. the bird will take care of them as they come in. you could look in to vitamin supplements for your bird in order to ensure proper new feather growth (pet stores sell water/food soluble bird vitamins) but it is not necessary.
i hope this helps and in the meantime please be sure to take precautions to not allow this to happen again...i know how hard it can be to manage children and multiple pets but I'm sure this will be a good learning experience for them to grow from!  alicia