devastated!!

littleredhen77

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i had 2 nice long weekends in a row..but i had to go back to work this morning. i made ziggy a new toy with a toilet paper tube and paper strips, and i hid a millet spray inside, showed him it was there and he seemed interested..so off to work i go!

..fast forward to when i come home...

and there are 5 CHEWED OFF WING FEATHERS on the bottom of his cage! hes chewed off wing feathers before but never more than 1 a week or so, seeing 5 of them at once is traumatizing! he was even working on a 6th..hes got one thats broken and twisted but still attached.

i feel like he got spoiled from spending 3 1/2 days straight with me and then i was gone all day today...im currently feeling like the only way to keep him happy would be to quit my full time well paying job and work part time at a gas station or wherever i can, just so i can come home and see him more often and prevent this...hes such a naughty bird! it had been weeks since he last chewed off a wing feather! ive been looking forward to molting season so the quill ends would come out and he would grow in a nice full set of feathers for the first time since ive adopted him :'( now im not sure he will ever have all his feathers.

its not his appearance im really worried about, but i feel like this is the start of what could become a more serious problem..as of now, he only chews off half of his wing feathers and leaves the bottom half attached..leaving him looking like hes gotten his wings clipped by a butcher..but this could escalate into full on plucking im afraid..

anyone have any advice on this? was it wrong of me to let him glue himself to my shoulder for my whole long weekend? im so stressed right now :((
 

chris-md

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Ugh I completely sympathize. Parker came to me a seasonal plucker. Fills out by end of fall, and plucks them by the end of winter. Lately I've been seeing maybe one chewed feather every other day, so I'm thinking I haven't licked the habit despite best efforts. I'm not sure if hormonal barbering is a slow progression or all at once, but I think I'm seeing him look a little thin.

On occasion I see serious chewing action on a feather, aside from one with a bent shaft. You might hold judgement for a week or so, this could be an isolated incident.

All the best!
 
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littleredhen77

littleredhen77

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i sure hope its isolated!!..im fully prepared to just quit my job tomorrow if i come home to more feathers..my boyfriend makes enough to support us both while i try to find "at home" ways to make money. i refuse to give him up, since when i adopted him i was prepared to give him everything he needs and i dont want to pass him off onto what would be his 5th home that i know of. im hoping that he just needs to readjust to me being gone during the day and ill be sure that next time i get a extra long weekend like this one, ill try to leave him to play on his stand for a good part of the day while i sit around the corner or go outside..i feel like im the cause of this sudden influx of chewing since i was with him all day from 1pm thursday to this morning..

as for Parker, you say hormonal barbering? is he still quite young or are there other times they become hormonal as well? my Ziggy bird is 25 years old i was told, and he should be well out of his hormonal stage..unless theres something i dont know about..

in the time youve owned Parker, has your bird seemed to progress from his barbering habits to anything more dangerous? im worried ill come home to a bald bird with bleeding sores who needs immediate vet attention..i know im prolly freaking out more than i need to be, but i have never seen him do this much at once :(
 

chris-md

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Parker is 6 and a half years old. Hormonal plucking is different from the hormonal teenage years you're thinking of. When the breeding season comes, it's possible that an ekkie will barber the feathers to use them as lining for the nest, or so I'm told.

This is his first year with me. The previous owners told me he feathers out during the summer into the fall. By the end of winter he will barber his whole torso down to the down feathers, leaving only tail and wing feathers. Come summer he will molt new feathers and leave them alone. Come late winter he's a downy mess again.

He has feathered out, but I'm finding little onsie-twosie chest feathers around lately, snapped at the base. I *think* he's looking a little thin (hard to tell right now, it's early). So my efforts to turn his habit appear to be unsuccessful. Even this hormonal barbering can become an irreversible habit over time.

Don't worry just yet about your Ziggy. Does he have a history of plucking?
 
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littleredhen77

littleredhen77

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hmm..so is it breeding season right now? this is my birds first year with me as well..he hasnt gone through a molt yet so i havent seen if this is a seasonal thing or not. it seemed to be a stress thing before ((and now as well)) where he would chew one feather off when i was gone a tad bit longer than normal, but for a month or so he had stopped all together..the nest lining thing seems logical though, if this is breeding season for them.

i hope we can both get our birds though this somehow! i examined the toy i made and he had nibbled the end of the millet sprig but he haddnt touched any of the newspaper i tried to hide it in..i was hoping that the way it was all stringy would give him something to take his preening craving out on..i guess not :/

i did hang a bath towel on the back of his cage the other day though since behind him is a double pane sliding glass door and i thought maybe it was a little cold..? i will try removing the towel during the day..because maybe it being there is stressing him out because he cant see outside with it there. oil prices are cheap this year and it wont hurt to turn the heat up a little to combat any cold that me may get from being near the window. ill update if that helps!
 

Anansi

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The breeding season question doesn't seem to have as clear cut an answer for ekkies as for, say, amazons. Some sources claim it is year round while others just point towards comparatively long breeding seasons.

There are any number of reasons an ekkie might barber, including hormones, diet issues, stress, boredom or skin irritation.

Since you say he's been known to stress pluck, I'd lean toward that or boredom as the cause. Or at least the original cause. Remember, a bird may start plucking/barbering for one reason, and then continue doing so out of pure habit. And this is why plucking/barbering and even self-mutilation can be such stubborn behaviors to stop.

If you haven't already done so, get Ziggy lots of shreddable toys for his cage. Toys with soft woods, leather thongs with knots tied in them, foraging opportunities (which I see you've already begun), and cardboard/paper to shred.

As for your worries about the cold by the sliding glass doors, keep in mind that inside of a house, it is really drafts or inconsistent temperatures that are more dangerous to birds than the ambient temperature. I mention this because, if the cold from your sliding doors is significantly different from the room's core temp, raising that temp will not make things safer for your bird. Because the draft, and its inherent temperature differential, will still be a factor. Know what I mean?

And no, you weren't wrong to spend a lot of time with him over the long weekend. It's just a matter of getting him used to a certain schedule. Now, if you'd spent all day every day with him for the first 2 or 3 weeks you had him and then switched things up, I'd say yes, that might've had a negative effect. But a long weekend? Not so much.
 
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littleredhen77

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Thank you anansi! he does have toys in his cage but he isnt really a toy lover..the only time i can get him to chew anything is if it has millet inside. hes got wooden toys, twine toys, paper and cardboard, nothing seems to interest him.

a little back story might help..i was told that he never had a plucking problem until his girlfriend was killed in an accident while he lived with his second owner, an alcoholic. after she died, he plucked his entire chest and prolly more. that is when his third owner got him. he was able to get him to regrow his feathers, but i feel like maybe the wing and tail barbering are stemming from that loss. i dont know how long ago that was but id guess 3 years ago. when i adopted him, he was still missing his tail though the quills are there just waiting to fall out any hopefully new tail feathers will grow in. he was already missing a good part of one wing. ive only seen 2 new feathers grow in since ive had him, and they have both been barbered since then. im not sure if the destructive behavior has to have been occuring over a long time for it to have become a habit like this..or if the fact that it started when he lost his mate is enough to make it a long term habit.

update from today: i removed the towel from the back of his cage this morning, and i didnt come home to any more chewed feathers today! thankfully! i was worried all day thinking id find another shredded pile of ziggy wings :'( apparently, he did not like that towel and im hoping that now that its down, he will stop.
 
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littleredhen77

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well, apparently it wasnt the towel that bothered him..came home today to 2 more feathers on the cage floor, and one small one chewed a bit and sticking out sideways on his wing :'( i feel like auch a horrible bird mom for being gone so long every day..ughhhh...

this is all he has left of his wing feathers..

20160106_183744.jpg
 

Anansi

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Don't you go beating yourself up over this! You're trying your best to figure out what's wrong. What's happening doesn't make you a bad parront.

Everything is trial and error at this point. Maybe you could try spending some bonding time with him in the morning before work, like say 39 minutes to an hour, and then giving him a full soaking in the shower. I've heard that sometimes frequent showers help cut down on barbering.
 
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littleredhen77

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thank you for the advice :) i do spend an hour with him in the morning, i take him out as soon as i wake up and he hangs out on the shower curtain rod while i shower in the morning, then once ihave enough clothes back on to protect me from his claws, hes on my shoulder for half an hour more, i make him breakfast right before i leave. i havent been giving him showers every day because im worried about him being too cold while he dries, my house temp is set to stay at 68 degrees during the day when nobody is home. i do give him nice long showers on the weekends though, but he shivers for an hour afterwords while hes still wet. during that time i keep him on my knee or chest so i can share my body heat with him.

tomorrow i will try removing the newspaper top he has in his cage since ive noticed that of all the feathers hes chewed this week, only 1 of them has fallen on the opposite side of his cage from this toy. from the place the feathers have all landed, and the amount of broken off barbs and small bits of feathers in the same place, it looks like he has been sitting on the perch that is directly in front of this toy, and instead of shredding the paper its made of, he has sat right there and shredded himself. this is the first time ive made one that hides his millett inside of paper streamer type bits..before, i was just clipping a millet sprig inside of a toilet paper tube so he could reach the bottom half but in order to get the top half he would have to chew the tube. this one incorporated paper and although he likes paper when i hold it up to him, maybe he isnt too happy about it hanging in his cage? it will be removed to see what happens..although he only has those 3 wing feathers left, so if he doesnt chew for awhile it might be because hes run out of feathers to nip off :(((

i really do appreciate the tips, im doing all i can do to keep him happy aside from quitting my job and hanging out with him all day... :( ..by the way that sounds fantastic since my job is a giant pain in the a** lately..id love to stay home with ziggy bird hes better than most of the people i deal with! :D
 

Anansi

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I hope what you're trying with the newspaper top does the trick, but if the perch you're referring to happens to be the highest one in the cage, he might just be going to that one out of a desire to be on the highest point. Birds instinct.

As for your worry about showering him during the week, what you could do is shower him and then blow dry him (on warm setting, of course! Lol!) until he's merely a little damp rather than sodden. (Don't completely dry him with the blow dryer, as that might give him dry skin and make him itchy.)

If he's merely a little damp, and there's no draft going through his cage, he should be fine at 68 degrees.
 
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littleredhen77

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20160107_062222.jpg


This is what he gets for breakfast every day, it consists of gone made chop, fresh sprouts, a couple blueberries and some pomegranate kernels along with 4 or 5 pumpkin seeds. Dinner is about the same, but I give him an ice cube sized serving of mashed up and heated sweet potato.

I will have to buy a hair dryer.. I needed one last winter when the fuel filter in my truck was frozen but I never bought one.. Now id have 2 uses for it ((hopefully won't have to thaw the truck again though lol!))
 

dhraiden

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That's quite the spread, and the plummage looks great. I unfortunately sometimes leave Mochi alone for 6 to 8 hours, and sometimes it's been 12. She was born last February'ish, and so far copes well despite those periods of absence. She started molting at the end of the summer, and has a new set pf feathers, though I still get alarmed when I find a whole one lying about. She loses her fluffy downy feathers a lot more often than the big ones.

Change the surroundings, maybe, provide stimulation in the form of new toys and media (leaving TV on and so on?) You sound like you're doing everything right, and way better than average.
 
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littleredhen77

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20160107_175313.jpg


heres an example of dinner time..he has buttercup squash tonight instead of sweet potato, same chop, same sprouts, kiwi instead of pomegranate..and no pumpkin seeds with dinner because as a night time snack he will get an almond. :)

came home from work today and did not find any new feathers! hopefully removing his toy was the trick!
 
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Anansi

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I'm so glad he didn't do any more feather destruction. Maybe you are indeed on to something.

Perhaps as a variation on that theme you can also keep rotating the positions of the toys in his cage. Might keep him on his toes and distracted from any thoughts of barbering.

Great job with his menu, btw. And I love how ziggy seemed to photobomb both pics! Lol!
 
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littleredhen77

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good idea on the toy rotation! i will try that for sure! its strange how he seems to love shredding paper when hes out but if he is looking at it in his cage while hes alone it makes him angry. :/

it was a little difficult to take those pictures lol i had to keep him on my shoulder while i prepared his dish because as soon as i set him down hes gonna stuff his beak into his bowl. i cant blame him though he does eat well..ive eaten some of his food before lol! when i make up his squash/sweet potato cubes ill sample it right along side him :p and sometimes ill put some of his sprouts on a wrap im making. i gotta test for quality control right? :p i remember when i was a child, and i had my first flock of chickens, my grandfather was talking to me while i was cleaning out the chicken water dish. he had told me, "dont make them drink out of something you wouldnt wanna drink out of" and thats really stuck with me. i try hard to make sure my animals all have clean and good quality care. :)
 

Peppo

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Hi! We also live in Maine, up in the county, where our heat is on October to April! I have noticed Paco over preening to somewhat barbering this winter as well. I think it is the tremendous dryness of the house coupled with the darkness, the fact that we can't go outside, etc. I bought a warm mist humidifier and it seems to be helping a bit. I also work 8 hours per day so showering is hard during the week as I want him to be dry before I leave (our house is set at 65 during the day and I am afraid he will be cold). I understand feeling guilty, I obsess over every feather lost or out of place too! Pray for spring to come, less than 3 months away! I also gave him a phone book to shred, judging by the mess of paper when I get home I would say it is keeping him busy, less time preening :)
 
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littleredhen77

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Hello Peppo! im glad to meet someone else up here in Maine! i do not have a humidifier but i do have a tea pot on the wood stove, however the fire is only lit at night so during the day it isnt doing anything for him at all. i can purchase one for sure because that sounds like a good idea as well! i have a mist bottle that ill mist him with at night, but it doesnt put much on him. thank you for the tip! i really cant wait for spring either! :p
 

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Anyone using a open fire to heat their place in winter runs the chance of removing the humiidity from the air and possibly it being too dry for their birdies. I know my violins HATE winter and I have to put humidifiers in each case during winter, or seams open up and wood splits. There are plenty of DIY for making simple humidifiers online, you may want to check them out.
 

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