ziggys poor wings :(

i have had my bird for almost 2 months now. i love him to death and im trying to give him a good life but he has this terrible habit of chewing off the second half of his wing feathers
in the 2 months ive owned him i have come home to find 7 feathers on the bottom of his cage now. today there were 2. he doesnt pull them out at the quill, and there is no blood, just half a feather with some bits and pieces hes shredded off. ive been taking newspapers and twisting them up into pretzels with almonds tucked in them to keep him entertained while im at work but he isnt much of a toy lover. unless he can see the tip of the almond sticking out he doesnt go for the 'pretzel' at all. he gets warm mist showers daily, and eats a chop mix of several veggies twice a day with fresh fruits and a few toasted pumpkin seeds as well as a large pinch of fresh sprouts.
i feel terrible but at the same time i feel like im doing all i can. he has been a plucker in the past, and when i got him he had ((and still has)) no tail at all. it doesnt even look like hes growing his tail back. his wings were also kinda scruffy looking when i adopted him, his previous owner told me hes never been able to fly, and i think its because hes never had enough of his wing feathers at any one point to learn.
i guess im trying to get ideas on what i need to do to stop this..it really to me seems like something he does when hes bored at home and im away at work. ive come home early a few times ((around noon, when i had left at 7am)) to find him in the process of removing a feather. i have never seen him chew when anyone is home and he is out. his previous owner told me he worked 10 hour days and was ziggy was only out maybe 4 hours a day. i do work similar hours, and he is out about the same amount of time. he is out and with me for an hour while i get ready in the morning, as well as 3-4 hours when i get home. much of this time is with me either on my shoulder or walking around on me.
ive been trying to work with him and show him that toys are fun and entertaining but hes just not at all interested in chewing anything other than his wings. its like the stiff quill going through the middle is the perfect texture he loves to chew. he has toys with tassles and some rope/twine looking strings hanging off it but hes not into them at all. he doesnt like wood, and he doesnt like cardboard.
has anyone else experienced a bird having this type of issue where they chew feathers in half on the same area of the body every time, and seemingly at the same time of day each time as well? any advice is appreciated.

these are the feathers ive found in the 2 months ive had him. to give you an idea on where hes breaking them off..

My Parker is very similar: a plucker (likely hormonal) who doesn't really like toys. My first attempt getting him to forage - covering his food bowl with a loose paper towel - resulted in him starving for twelve hours

Because my gut tells my foraging is the most important thing we can do for our birds, I was bound and determined to work with him on it. I made it stupid simple, first using a coconut foraging toy , basically a coconut with with a sizable hole cut into the side where he can stick his head in. I make him watch me put his favorite snack in there, and he chases it in. He learns quickly, so after a few times he learns that toy is a food provider, so I can sneak some stuff in there when he's not in the cage, and he will occasionally look in there for food. This is great for while your at work. My partner and I work for the same company and are out of the house from 8am-8pm a lot.

From there I did this, just placing an almond sliver into a completely open toilet paper roll so he can see it. This was his first attempt at this

[ame="http://youtu.be/KztWdrv4KsY"]Parker the eclectus' first foraging success - YouTube[/ame]

Lastly, after a few more times of that to make sure he had that down (you can see the cardboard is a bit beat up at this point), I folded one end over so the almond can only come out one way. This here was also Parkers first attempt at this variation

[ame="http://youtu.be/Qs_vpNE3xd0"]Parkers second foraging success - YouTube[/ame]

From this point I sealed both ends and ripped out a circle in the middle so it can only come out there. It's still a work in progress. I'm always finding ways I can make him work for his food (foraging, not trick training...I'm just a bit too lazy for that). Just half an hour ago I made him climb a coup,e stair steps, and will over time increase the number of steps he has to climb.

The net result: he enjoys shredding just a little more. His coconut forager has shells dangling from strings. He never touched those before, but after foraging activities he's now messing with them, and half are now missing. You can also dangle large leaved veggies around his cage he can nibble on. Parker is most likely to nibble Swiss chard than anything.

i will try more things tomorrow when i get home. ziggy seems scared of toilet paper tubes but i think with enough pumpkin seeds i can hopefully convince him to investigate a little more. i really hope so because i really would love to get him to stop chewing his petty feathers before he startes plucking them out risking bleeding. i hate what he does but not from an appearance kind of way, i just dont want it to progress to actual injury.

thank you for your ideas! its nice to know someone has had luck distracting their seemingly uninterested bird with toys

any other ideas i can try for his cage while im gone..im thinking like treat traps or things that just make him wanna investigate, earning a seed if he figures them out?

I think anything that makes him investigate is great!

Consider your cage size. Parker came to me with an enormous cage, 6' tall x 4' wide and 2' deep. His previous owners got this for him because he plucked for them and demanded this cage go with him to help the adjustment. Fine with me since I didn't have a cage. I now couldn't imagine him in one smaller. The larger room makes him climb more, which is great exercise. His cage doesn't really fit in my house, but we don't care. I couldn't afford this large a cage on my own and I'm certain it keeps him sane while we're gone. So the "free" oversized cage stays.

I really hope others step in to help you out. I'm so far from knowledgeable here, I just have the steep learning curve that came with a plucking Ekkie over 3 months. Many here have owned Ekkies for years and can help much more than I.

what sort of diet do you feed him?

i feed him the healthiest things i can come up with. i make him a fresh batch of chop and freeze it in bags. his mix right now is carrots, bell peppers, jalepenos, broccoli, cucumber and roasted sweet potato slices. everything i put in his chop i mix with 1 tablespoon of AVix 'sunshine factor' per pound of chop. he has a couple pomegranates ive been serving pieces of daily, as well as 6 or so toasted pumpkin seeds, and a good pinch of fresh sprouts. in the evening i give him 1 or 2 almonds as a bedtime treat.

occasionally like once a week or so i give him a millet spray, but other than that he doesnt get seeds or pellets.

Chris has already given you some rather solid advice. (The steep learning curve apparently suits you, Chris.) Foraging activities and toy play in general is extremely important to an ekkie's (or any parrot's) mental and emotional wellbeing. There are tons of how to threads to be found across the forum if you'd like ideas you can try. The idea is to give them something to focus on while you're not there to alleviate their boredom.

And some birds need to be taught how to play with toys, believe it or not. Some have absolutely no idea what they're supposed to be doing with these weirdly shaped objects.

You can teach him by playing with the toy yourself, right in front of him. Get animated with your voice and facial expressions, so he sees it's something to get excited over. In many ways, they take their cues from us.

You might also want to increase the frequency of his baths. Dry skin can cause irritation and itchiness, which can lead to barbering or even plucking. Maybe the cool water will provide him some relief.

Good advice so far! I'm dealing with a plucking eckie as well. One thing I would say is DONT GIVE UP! I rehabbed two pion us parrots who had been used as breeders by someone who believed that breeders shouldn't have toys. It took me over a year to get them to even touch their toys. They eventually started playing just a little, that went on for several months, Then one day I found a pile of splinters where I had left a wooden toy! I literally cried! All told it was almost two years of work on my part before they played in what I consider a normal way. I also had a long hard work ge
Thing them to eat anything but the bland diet they were on when they came to me. It was over a month of leaving the door to their cage open before they even stuck their heads out. Your baby likely has a lot of mental blocks keeping him from doing things. I relate; I have a lot of mental blocks myself. Be patient, hang in there, never give up!