#feather picking

Image: http://www.wideopenpets.com/avian-rx-what-is-feather-plucking-and-why-do-birds-do-it/

Feather picking is something you are likely to come across if you’re working with psittacines. While it may seem benign and cosmetic, feather picking can be an important sign of an underlying problem, either medical or environmental. 

When faced with these cases, your first step should be a THOROUGH history.

Some important questions to consider (as well as standard husbandry/history):

- Is the bird housed alone? (If not, you will need to try and differentiate self-plucking or plucking by the cage mate).

- Describe the birds cage: size, substrate, perches, decorations, toys, location in house, location in room, noise level in area.

- Is the bird allowed to free roam? If so, is it supervised?

- What time do you turn off your birds lights; when do you turn them on in the morning?

- Have there been any changes to the birds life? (ie. moved house, moved cage, new people, new animals, less interaction time, less flight time, etc.)

- When did the bird start plucking?

- Has the bird plucked before? If so, describe (when did it start, how long, what feathers, when did it stop).

- Does the bird rub or scratch itself on cage objects?

- When does the bird pluck/chew? Does it interrupt other behaviours to do so?

- Is there cigarette smoke, air freshener, candle use in the home?

- Is the bird sprayed or bathed regularly? How often?

- Was the bird hand-reared or parent-reared?

- Does the bird have a favourite owner?

- Have any eggs been laid?

- When did the bird last moult? Describe.

- Does the bird have clipped wings? How long for?

Often, plucking is caused by a combination of factors. Therefore, it is important to identify as many as possible in order to resolve the issue.

Possible medical causes include: allergy, parasites, skin irritation, pain, reproductive disease, systemic illness (esp liver), PDD, air sacculitis, heavy metal toxicosis, solliculitis, malnutrition, neoplasia.

A thorough clinical exam should be performed after obtaining your history. After the physical exam, a full dermatological examination should be performed.

Unfortunately, the list of causes is too large to go into further detail. It is important to have an understanding of the different medical conditions that can lead to feather plucking in order to evaluate the history and physical exam.

With knowledge from the history and physical exam, you should be able to stream-line further diagnostics (ie. CBC, biochem, skin scraping, etc).

If husbandry can be improved, have a detailed conversation with the owner about what to change and HOW to change it. Send home handouts as there can be a lot to discuss.

If you want to hear more about any of the possible causes for feather plucking, let me know! I can do posts on those topics too.

hello anon! god i’m so sorry this is so late!!!

it can happen actually yes!

feathers are pretty delicate, and while they’re preening sometimes they can accidentally preen a bit too hard and cause it to break and bleed.  make sure you have clotting powder (you can get it at any pet store), or even cornstarch or flour to stop the bleeding.  put a bit on your finger and apply light pressure with it for like 30 seconds to a minute to make it clot and stop.

i’d keep an eye on the lil dude too, i doubt its plucking but just make sure it’s not happening a lot.  if it is, bring him to the vet! but i am pretty sure it was accidental on is part.

(Here is a thing I wrote for a Wordpress blog! Contains academic sources!)

Feather plucking in birds can be a confusing situation. Sometimes birds pluck themselves, sometimes they pluck other members of the flock; the cause can be a medical issue or the cause can be a behavioral problem. In this post, we'll take a look at the non-medical side to feather plucking.

Note: If your bird is plucking, please do not try to diagnose the cause on your own. Seek veterinary care, as the plucking could be caused by an underlying condition.

Birds are incredibly smart creatures, and without the proper environment and stimulation, they can turn to self-mutilation. Likely causes for behavioral-based plucking include stress, separation anxiety, lack of enrichment/interaction and attention seeking. It's also important for bird owners not to encourage behavioral plucking, especially if plucking is used as an attention grabber.

However, in a study called "Nonmedical Factors Associated with Feather Picking in Pet Psittacine Birds," published in the 2014 issue of Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery, researchers found that some species are more inclined to pluck. They found that African greys and cockatoos were more likely to pluck than other birds. A few other studies included macaws and eclectus parrots as being more likely to pluck. The researchers also found that rescue birds and birds given more than eight hours of out-of-cage-time were more likely to pluck.

So why would African greys and cockatoos be singled out as the most likely to pluck? African greys are extremely intelligent birds -- they're compared to human toddlers for a reason. Their intelligence may lend them to be more likely to suffer from lack of interaction and enrichment and turn to feather plucking. Cockatoos are also intelligent birds, but lean toward the affectionate side. Cockatoos crave socialization, and if they are denied that, especially if it is a single bird, they may pluck due to separation anxiety, lack of interaction or attention-seeking behavior.

On the flip side, over-stimulation can lead to plucking and feather damaging behaviors, too. Lack of sleep or downtime and constant noise (think young children playing or a noisy neighborhood) are examples of over-stimulation that are likely to cause stress and possibly feather plucking.

Mating behavior and territorial behavior may also lead to feather plucking. Either of these could lead to one bird plucking its flockmate. If this occurs, the owner needs to separate the two to prevent further aggression.

Why is your bird plucking? Even on the behavior-based/non-medical side, there is a plethora of reasons why a bird may pluck. Other research, which wasn't even discussed in this article, cites cage placement, sex and obsessive grooming as causes. It can be difficult to pin down the exact reason. The best way to answer the "why" is to evaluate yourself, your bird and your relationship. If you are able to examine your bird's behavior, diet, sleep schedule, toys, etc., you can narrow down your possible causes.

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I have a problem. And not one I thought I would have lol. As I type this there is a 3 day old chick asleep in my hand.

This is expected. What is NOT is why she’s here. She is here bc I heard distressed peeps, went to check on the crew and one of the others had grabbed her by the back of the neck and was yanking her around.

Now I knew about feather pecking early on. I knew shipping would be stressful. For some reason I was sure they’d be fine. But now I have a chick on my chest and I am worried if I put her in again it will start again.

I had noticed this chick already had some feather damage when I unboxed them. I think I was just hoping getting them in a bigger space with food and water would help.

You may be able to target train her to help her get more used to hands and teach her to come out of the cage as well as go back in to it on her own terms.  Her plucking at her feathers when she heads back in to the cage can be a sign that she’s uncomfortable during the interaction with you, when you pull her from the cage and she refuses she’s spending all that time out being stressed and afraid, as soon as she gets to a place where she feels safe enough to let her guard down she’ll pick at the feathers.  Rather than trying to make her come out give her the opportunity to come out on her own and give her a little incentive to do so, target training, leaving treats on the outside of the cage, let her decide when she’s comfortable enough to come out so she won’t be stressed out by the time she decides to go back in.

If you haven’t already I’d also get a good vet check under your belt to ensure the plucking isn’t a health concern, make sure her cage is large enough for her and that there’s enough toys and other forms of independent stimulation for her. Foraging activities are a great way to stop birds from picking at their feathers, gives them motivation to play with toys and rewards them when they do which helps prevent boredom and take some time away from feather destructive behaviours.  Depending on how severe the fear of you is you may have to back up a few steps and go over some basic taming things to get her more comfortable with you as well.

My bird is afraid of my hand, won’t step up

Building trust with your bird

Dealing with fear, getting birds accustomed to new objects

If this happened very suddenly for no apparent reason, it would be a good idea to get Greenbean checked our by an avian vet. Birds are very good at hiding signs of illness, so something like unexplained feather loss could easily be a health issue that you don’t see manifesting in other ways.

But also think about possible changes in Greenbeans environment that may have caused it. It could be something pretty big, like moving the cage or a new pet (cat or dog), or decreased attention from your niece, or a change in diet. It could also be little things that may not have seemed like a big deal to you—a slight change in routine (wake up/bed time, when your niece gets home to see him, etc.) or wall decorations changing/moving. Or someone burning scented candles, or using air freshened or cleaning sprays. My old boss from the pet store once got ants in the summer, and one day they got into her parrotlets cage, and in the span of a few hours he plucked all his chest feathers out. she got rid of the ants very quickly, but since then he always plucks. Moogan is the same—he started plucking when his previous owner stopped having him a lot of attention, and it got worse when he was rehomed to us, since that’s very stressful. Now he’s a very happy bird, but he continues to pluck.

So basically what I’m saying is it would be best to get him checked out by a vet, but if there’s nothing the vet can find and no obvious environmental cause, it may be something to just live with. Plucking is unfortunately something that’s not very well understood—a lot of cases have really obvious causes, but a lot don’t. And even more that ARE understood have the plucking continue even after the stress is eliminated because it becomes a habit (like Moogan). I can’t find any articles right now because I’m on mobile, but I’ll try to look some up later. Most probably won’t be terribly helpful because like I said, it can be sooo many things and a lot isn’t understood about it, and every situation is different. But it can never hurt to gain some knowledge.

edit: oh, and for good books, you can check out guide to a well-behaved parrot, and the Barron’s books in general are pretty decent. (I’ll add links when I’m not on mobile.) Plus there’s a ton of information online, you just have to know to take everything with a grain of salt because there are a lot of conflicting opinions. And if you have questions about care, you can ask me or any of the bird bloggers over at @askbirdbloggers!