Help, my beautiful boy starting chewing off his feathers saturday afternoon.
When I left him he was fine, I got home a couple hours later to a HUGE pile of
feathers on the bottom of the cage. He started with one leg, then all the feathers
on his breast and up under one wing. He is now working on the other side and his
back. He is not plucking them out of the skin - he is literally chewing them off!?!
Nothing in his cage, food, routine has changed. I did give him a new hanging perch,
but it was beside his cage for a day or two and now is above his cage and when he is
out he goes right up onto it, so I do not think it is bothering him.
Any suggestions? I am calling a vet today, but I am soooo upset. My last QP was a very
bad plucker, so bad I used to come home to vast amounts of blood - this is my worst
nightmare & my baby is only 9 1/2 months old.
I did run out yesterday and get "Pluck No More" it is an all natural addative for his water.
You put it in their drinking water and you mist them with it. It comes highly recommended,
but I want to know what is causing this behavior so I can hopefully stop it from happening
again. Please give me your thoughts, has this happened to anyone else?
Thanks,
Jenn & Buddy

The first thing to rule out is any parasite or disease. I would take him to an avian vet for the full blood panel and then work from there.

I'm glad you're rushing to the vet today. I suspect a bacterial infection and urge you to hurry. Please don't put anything on his feathers (ever but especially before his vet exam) except water.

Hurry! gail

Thanks Gail,
I have an appointment today with an avain specialist.
Why do you say not to put anything on his featers, ever. The stuff I mentioned
came highly recommended by a very large, well know bird shop and is all natural. What exactly is a bacterial infection and where could he have gotten it, he has never left the house.
Thanks in advance for any more input.
I will keep you posted about our vet visit.
Jenn

I'm so relieved you're not delaying, Jenn. If it's bacterial, it could have come from many, many places, including home with you on your shoes, skin, or clothes from outside or a shop you visited. Could have come in on food or a bag of whatever. Could have been a little piece of food the bird hid for a rainy day and of course it was filled with bacteria before he dug it back out. Ugh! Could also have been brought in by a fly or ant.

It's not nearly as important to learn how it got to your bird as it is to have a vet diagnose and treat it FAST. Anytime feather destruction starts so fast and furiously, I suspect physical illness. It could also be fungal, but that's harder to cure, so I hope it's bacterial.

Why not use the Pluck No More? Two reasons. First, you're taking him for a vet exam and don't want a substance you've applied to interfere with the vet's ability to identify the problem. Secondly, my own vet said "Never, never anything but clean water" so I'm repeating what I've learned. There are about a million known reasons for avian feather destruction and probably 10X that many that aren't yet known. Purported remedies are everywhere and get used because all of us with feather destructive birds are DESPERATE to help them. But we're usually trying several things simultaneously -- diet changes, shreddable toys, more frequent showers... When there's improvement, we can't know which of our efforts caused it. So, new products often do get good reviews, but it's not always because they made the difference. I've personally read more critiques that said this product made no difference.

I have my fingers crossed for a quick cure for your baby.

gail

Fingers crossed here too.

please keep us updated......

Bumping this up, wondering how things are.

Sorry not to have gotton back to guys soon, we had no internet for a day.
Buddy has a bacterial infection - he is now on atibiotics and a special soothing spray
for his plucking from the vet. He came home with a specially made collar - to stop
the plucking - but I had to take it off within 24 hours as he was not eating or drinking.
I am so worried about him, he is really only a baby. As soon as the collar came off, he
started eating again - Thank God!! He seems to be leaving his feathers alone, just doing
regular preening. I think he may be molting too - his head has alot of pin feathers and he
is standing around with his foot ontop of his head, moving it every once and awhile to
the sides of his head. Has anyone seen behavior like this before? The vet said he had no
feather mites or yeast infection. I rub his head for him and he really loves that (before he hated it) and I am feeling some pin feathers in there. Poor baby, everything all at once.
He looks awful, compared to his handsom self a few days ago. He did lose weight and this
morning I can feel his little bone in the middle of his chest. (He went from 100 to 83, maybe
even more after a day of not eating) I am praying for a quick recovery and no set backs, he is
just too young for all this.
Any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thank you all.

This is all GOOD news, tho it's likely impossible for a worried mom to appreciate it right now. Knowing what upset him so badly and getting meds into him are sooooo much better than NOT! Antibiotics usually have a noticeable effect in about 24 hrs, so it was TIME for that awful collar to come off -- your good mama instincts were working just fine

Be cautious what you feed him to put that weight back on. He needs highly nutritious food to give his body the energy to heal. No junk food just for fast calories, please. Minimize seed and increase his portion of veggies such as carrots (lightly steamed), broccoli, sweet potatoes (baked just a little), red peppers, and greens -- dandelion, kale, collards, carrot, broccoli (the stem too), and chard. I mince my veggies (always organic)in a food chopper and stir them into brown rice so my birds get small pieces of veggies while they're pigging out on the rice.

You'll be pleasantly surprised how fast he'll be himself again. I'm very relieved for you and him.

Healing light, gail