Does anyone have a bird that has stopped plucking?

Question

My older goffins FINALLY did and has FINALLY grown back almost all his feathers and doesn't appear to be plucking anymore. I don't know why he was plucking to begin with or why he suddenly stopped (could be that we got a puppy to take his mind off overpreening or that he finally bonded with the other bird?).... anyone else have a bird who has also stopped? You never hear GOOD stories like this :-P

He was taken to the vet several times and cleared of any physical problems (even to one of the top avian vets in the country, since moving out here). The diet thing is interesting, though... but haven't switched foods on him...

I was thinking that the puppy was distracting him from obsessively preening and giving him some visual exitement....

... or that with him finally bonding to the younger bird (who does NOT pluck) he learned some better behaviors.

Boo's start of plucking started when I let my college roommate babysit him a few days (he was 3 and didn't like her boyfriend). I'm also slightly a bit hyperactive/nervous and I wonder how much he's picked up on that over the years. Probably impossible to pinpoint why he started and why he suddenly stopped (the past 4 months, anyway).

Answer 1

Yes!
I have a 15 year old African Grey who is a rescue/relinquishment I adopted in August. She was essentially bald last January when a Vet Tech friend picked her up from a family who's Mother had died. It was the Mom's bird and the Adult children didn't want her any more. So my friend rehabilitated her for 8 months: cleaned up her horrendous diet, got her on vitamin supplements, gave her regular showers, and most importantly, made sure she got at least 10 hours of sleep in a dark covered cage every night.
At this point, I stepped in and began working with her behavior. Within 2 days she went from being a cage-bound, hand-shy Grey to a somewhat affectionate happy little girl. She now steps up with no hesitation, does a high-four immediately and will do a turn-around on cue. She's a chatty little thing and little by little, a rather extensive vocabulary is starting to appear, including saying "Thank You" when I make her breakfast.
It did the trick. She quit plucking, and she has down and feathers growing back everywhere. She has started what is probably her first healthy molt in years, and the feathers are coming back. She still has a bald tummy, but that has begun to fill in around the edges slowly and solidly. She's really beginning to look pretty good. I think a lot of it is their state of mind. When birds are happy, rested, well-cared for and nothing is bothering them, they will stop plucking if it hasn't generated into a habit.
I attended the American Federation of Avilculture convention last year in Miami and Dr. Susan Clubb gave a speech about Feather Damaging Behavior. She has found evidence that some plucking is a result of bacterial infections or allergies. By doing a systemic blood test as well as a paired skin and feather biopsy, they can sometimes determine the presence of bacterial infections in the follicles, fungal skin infections, nerve inflammation and even iron storage in the skin.
Some birds have mold sensitivities and dietary sources of excess mold can be reduced to relieve the plucking.
Another item to remember is that when a bird plucks, there is damage to the follicles, and the first or even second feather growth back may not "hold" the new feather for very long. In other words, the follicle is still repairing itself and it may take several feather growths in a bald area before the follicle is strong enough to support the new growth of feathers. So don't be discouraged if your Goffin's loses a few feathers on the way to new growth. It is a process that might take a while before a new growth actually "takes".
So there are success stories...the rescue organization I work with, "Phoenix Landing" sees this all the time. And it's wonderful when it happens. Congratulations on your bird by the way!

Answer 2

I don't have one that's stopped plucking, but I'm a vet tech and I've worked with several pluckers. I can tell you that there are more than just behavioral issues that cause birds to pick their feathers.

First off, recent studies suggest that MOST, not just a few, cases of feather plucking can be traced back to the bird's diet. We can't pretend to know exactly what birds' dietary needs are - heck, we haven't even mastered it for people yet. What it comes down to is that the average parrot's bloodwork is WAY off, and that's primarily due to malnourishment.

The second largest cause is irritants in the air around the bird. It could be anything from cigarette smoke to cooking fumes, fumes given off cedar shavings, dust in the air, pollen in your locale, or even just particularly sensitive skin. It could be food allergies.

Depending on where the plucking is occurring, it could be giardia, a parasitic protozoa that causes "traveler's diarrhea" in people. Giardia sufferers pluck the undersides of their wings and their inner thighs. For some reason the parasite causes intense itching in those areas.

The problem with plucking is that it may start off as a dietary problem but turn into habit. Parrots being the obsessive creatures of habit they are, they are likely to seize on it as a form of comforting themselves during stressful times.

Now, your bird, he's stopped plucking. That leads me to think that his problem was physical, and it has suddenly gotten corrected, and you just haven't figured out what it was.

I doubt the puppy stopped him from plucking. If anything, it would have increase it if it were a stress response. No bird is comforted by the presence of a predator, so the puppy really should have stressed him out. The fact that he stopped plucking in the face of stress further supports my contention that it's physical.

Think, did you change ANYTHING that would affect the quality of the air, the water, the food? Did you switch laundry detergents? (They give off bits of themselves in the air when you wear clothes, and rub off on the birds when you handle them.) Colognes? Soap? What have you stopped using in the last month? Change brands of anything that he eats or drinks?

You see how far this can go. You need to look around the house and see if you stopped using something that you WERE using before he stopped plucking. whatever change you made was for the good, so don't change anything you're doing until you find out what has changed.

Remember, anything that goes into the air: colognes, fabric softeners, air fresheners (a known irritant to birds), cooking scents and smells, etc. can affect the quality of life. And of course, in case you didn't know it, Teflon fumes will kill a bird in seconds or minutes. That's obviously not the case here, as your bird is alive.

The other option is that you have stopped feeding him something that was a regular part of his diet, or that the water quality has changed somehow. His body chemistry has leveled itself out and he's no longer malnourished.

And remember - a fat bird is quite likely a malnourished bird. Fat does not equal healthy. Big eaters do indeed get big health problems, no matter how people want to politicize it.

I can tell you that we've also tried the avian collars at www.aviancollar.com and the bird we used it on got around it like it was no problem at all. Still chewed up his chest and back. I only had one experience with it so far, but I didn't see it working. Of course, this was a long-term, experienced, hard-core plucker. (For sure the cedar shavings in the cage didn't help! Removing those helped grow feathers back, but the follicles were so damaged and the behavior so ingrained that it will never go away entirely.)

Anyway, good luck in your search. It is the holy grail of the avian behavior and medical field.

Answer 3

Uour Cockatiel has been on an E-collar for a couple months..

You can get one at avian places...Works realy good :D

Answer 4

N - n - noooooooo. I can't say I have. But here we have grounds for an extremely good short story bordering on the surreal.