Feather Imping

This is a Red Tailed Hawk, not an owl, but I had never heard of this process before. It sounds simple (but tedious if it's a lot of feathers) and effective. Very interesting!

From Center for Wildlife

Recently, our Wildlife Medical Clinic team performed an incredible procedure called "imping" (short for implantation) on a Red-tailed Hawk patient in our care. This process is the replacement of damaged feathers from a donor of the same species.

This red-tailed hawk, number 23-1843, came to us just over a month ago after being found on the ground. He was showing signs of dehydration and emaciation upon arrival and our team got to work providing supportive care. While grounded, this hawk did a significant amount of damage to his primary tail feathers. The decision was made to utilize feathers from a donor hawk that passed away in our care to replace 1843s damaged primary feathers. Our team implanted the new feathers in the feather shafts which will give 1843 the ability to fly. As new feathers grow in, these replacement feathers will simply drop and be replaced themselves!

This procedure is just one of many that our wildlife specialists utilize to help ensure an animal's survival and shows the dedication and expertise they possess! Many thanks to the rescuers and clinic staff that have enabled 1843 to make it to this point and stay tuned for more updates.

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Damaged feathers

Donor feathers

Here's a quick Nat Geo article talking a bit about the process. It sounds like they graft a good shaft onto the base of the feather coming out of the follicle. It hopefully holds up until the bird molts and gets new feathers.

ETA: Here's an owl specific link. Same info pretty much, but not photos and some video.