Self-mutilation?

I leave on vacation for a week with my dad watching the birds and when I come back... Artie is dirty and his feathers are broken and nibble, his wings are all uneven. My dad doesn't know what happened.. Is it self-inflicted? My lovies don't have any problems so what..? PLZ let me know if you know what this might be. BTW - not molting, I know what that looks like.

My Tiel joey was very very sensitive to me leaving him for too long. He used to pull feathers out of his cheeks somehow. It had my vet stumped!

I'd get him in for a checkup just in case...

Do you have a photo of Artie after your return? From your description, it sounds like Artie may have had night frights and damaged his feathers while flapping in his cage.

Thank you for the replies.
No, I don't have a picture as my phone stopped working but the ends of his feathers are frayed. There is dark brown stuff dried gunk on the inside of his left wing and on closer inspection, it looks like dried blood. He seems to have broken several feathers and I'm taking him to the vet for a professional check. Thanks for the help!

Poor little guy, a vet visit is a good idea, with gunk and dried blood there's always a chance of infection. I hope the vet visit goes well and Artie recovers quickly. Please let us know what you find out.

Kyoto said:

My Tiel joey was very very sensitive to me leaving him for too long. He used to pull feathers out of his cheeks somehow. It had my vet stumped!

I'd get him in for a checkup just in case...

Click to expand...

He used his feet. We have plenty that use their feet to pull out head and neck feathers at the shelter. I'll have to take pictures of the two bald blue and golds sometime. They look like vultures. They plucked out each other's head feathers until the follicles were too damaged to grow back....now they are just a very funny looking pair.


I agree that it sounds like it could have been night frights. The vet is a good idea

Thanks for all the support!
I took Artemis to the vet's office and he got all cleaned up. He managed to break several flight feathers that had just grown back so they had to be trimmed down. He also broke one secondary feather and smacked his nose against something. The vet says the damage is not as bad as it could have been and he seems fine now but I'm going to be very careful with him. I think violent night frights could have done it. Thank you for the input. He seems to be recovering already. The problem is I need to go on vacation or work trips sometimes and I don't want to see this happen every time. Any tips? He doesn't usually have night frights because I leave on a small lamp and cover him. Also, the room he sleeps in is very quiet.

If you have him in a quiet room with a night light on at bedtime, it sounds like you're already doing everything you can to prevent night frights.

Is the light placed in such a way that enough of it gets through to give some diffuse lighting to the inside of the cage? You know, since you keep him covered?

Sorry to reply late. Yes, it is placed like that. He hasn't had problems before.

I hear its common for birds to hurt themselves and pluck their own feathers when they are feeling stressed - why do they do that?? logically speaking in terms of survival and instincts, thats one of the worst things you can do when you're stressed!! also i hear lot of times those plucked feathers do not grow back?

They are no longer in the wild which is basically the reason they harm themselves. People fail spectacularly at providing for the needs of parrots and this is not always our fault. Naturally we can not give them the exact environment they encounter in the wild and some of the issues that cause mutilating and plucking are because of this fact. We can not recreate their natural diet right now, we can not recreate a flock that is 50 or more strong, we can not surround or be near them 24/7, communication between humans and parrots can be faulty. Parrots in sanctuaries with flights can do very well because they are much closer to being a natural setting (lots of birds) than our homes.

Plucked feathers can start from anything from diet, health issues, environment, that weird looking statue won't stop looking at me.... A lot of the time plucking may start because of health issues but become a behavior issue after the health issue goes away.

Plucked feathers can and will grow back. It is when plucking becomes chronic that they damage the follicles, no longer allowing feathers to regrow.