Nanday Conure Forum

Message #7498. This is a followup to #7496.

Name: Margaret Madison
Date: Friday July 9, 2010 7:10:16 pm MDT
Subject: Re: feathers and itching
Message: Getting to the bottom of feather picking behavior can be a costly and long road to travel. It is a complex issue and a frustrating problem for vets and bird owners alike. It could be a physical/medical problem (polyoma virus, beak & feather disease, parasites, bacterial/fungal infections, allergies), an emotional/psychological problem (dog/cat stares at the bird, fear), environmental problem (location of cage - such as near a door where people make a sudden entrance). The possibilities seem endless.

A social environment is important to a bird's mental health. Birds can become fearful if separated from their flocks (former owners/bird companions) or end up spending a lot of time alone. Overpreening is a form of self-comforting behavior to birds. This is one possibility.

If the problem was nutritional, perhaps a change of diet could remedy the situation.

Because you say the bird's skin appears dry and flaky, it is possibly that it may be something like giardia, allergies or fungal infections. They can make the skin dry. You could take your bird to a vet and have them run tests for some of these. Giardia doesn't always show as positive when tested as the protozoa isn't shed in every dropping. If a vet suspects this, they may choose to prescribe metronidazole for good measure. Your vet can also run tests for fungal infections. Allergies are harder to nail down but they could include something in the diet or something in the home. Perhaps an air cleaner can help? If you get one use a HEPA air filter, never use an ionic air cleaner.

Behavioral problems are even harder to nail down. Perhaps your bird is having anxiety at not being able to complete the instinctive breeding behaviors, with no mate available. They can take out their sexual frustrations by picking their feathers. Perhaps your bird is bored and needs more mental stimulation. Perhaps the bird is stressed if family members are having loud frequent arguments. Sometimes a stressed bird will be preening itself and accidentally pull out a feather which sends an adrenaline rush, which feels good and some of that anxiety is gone. Then it begins picking more and more, basically self-medicating itself. Birds can become stressed it they're in a room with fluorescent lighting (which to the bird looks like a flickering light). Birds can also become stressed if their owners are stressed. They can really pick up on the moods of the humans in the home.

Often, the bird has picked feathers for so long that even if you can determine the original root cause, the behavior may be just a bad habit now. You know that bad habits can be hard to break for us humans? Well, the same can go for birds.

As you can see, this is not an easy thing to remedy. It is always best to try and get the problem resolved as soon as it is noticed. Unfortunately, it sounds like your bird has been doing this long before you acquired him. I'd take him to a vet and get a full medical workup to rule out a medical problem first.

I hope some of this helps.

Is your bird picking itself to the point of making itself bleed?

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