What to do

the eclectus how been taking off his feathers for about a year now. 1st i thought it was molting but i dont think so.. he leaves his grey soft feathers but takes out everything else. I tried going with what the vet told me and changed his diet to a different brand, instead of seeds. Still he does it and now it came to a point where he made his butt feather bleed a little. And another side of his butt looks a little red and a bit swollen. We are 3 people in the house, he does not look stressed. Likes to be with us, play with us. However lately he has been very attached to me, want to go wherever i go. He tries to take advantage of my hands 😁. He regurgitates often and soemtimes on me. I got him many toys to play with, he is very scared of them. Especially balls and red colored things. This is all the info i can think of, is there anything you guys suggest?

Hello there and welcome

Were happy to try to help you. But we do need more information:

Where do you live?

How old is he?

How long have you had him? Are you his first owner?

Describe his diet...details!

Do you know his weight in grams?

Does he get showers/baths? How often?

Do you have any other birds?

What sort of training or entertainment do you provide? Does he forage much? Does he like shredding toys?

Describe the cage arrangement. Do you have a nest box or some sort of hut?

chris-md said:

Hello there and welcome

Were happy to try to help you. But we do need more information:

Where do you live?

How old is he?

How long have you had him? Are you his first owner?

Describe his diet...details!

Do you know his weight in grams?

Does he get showers/baths? How often?

Do you have any other birds?

What sort of training or entertainment do you provide? Does he forage much? Does he like shredding toys?

Describe the cage arrangement. Do you have a nest box or some sort of hut?

Click to expand...

Hello,

I live in New York

He is 5 years old, I had him seen he was a month old

He has been great till the beginning of 2019

I use to feed him seeds, but the vet told me seeds are like candy to them.. so now i feed him, zupreem and versele laga goldenfeast.
He does eat table food here and there like rice, veggies, fresh fruit and goes loco for cheese.

I keeps his room in 60 percent humidity

He takes showers atleast 3 times a week

I do not have another bird, he was really into my mom at first she took care of him all the time and pretty much spoiled him. Therefore dont really have much training. As i said before he gets scared of toys, he runs hops away for his life. So there for he has 1 toy in his cage that is a circular thing with a bell inside of it. He has a foraging toy with his nuts inside and thats all.. he use to play with toys, try to bite into stuff but now he just try to do that to whatever i have like phone chase and keys. Other then that i have got him toys for his cage for outside the cage but he gets scared. I got him balls, other foraging toys etc etc hes just scared, he plays with a stick i got him and thats all.
Before he would play with the balls, small teddy bears, he would rip apart toys in his cage. Now i feel like he plays less in general, hes active but not crazy how he use to be and how i see other eclectus are.
I wouldnt say hes not active at all cause he is i dont know how to explain but from 10 being most active i would say 7-8 compared to a year or 2 ago

his wait was great apparently to the vet, strong healthy fellow

I did get him a triangular hut type thing and kept it in his cage for weeks but didnt even take a look at it

Thank you! Did your vet also do bloodwork to rule out deficiency or infection/disease? If not, go back and get that done.

The reason I ask about his exact weight is it helps in identifying his subspecies, which could have some implications here. If you can remember how many grams he weighted it could be very helpful.

It sounds to me that your experiencing some extremely protracted hormones: the self pleasuring, regurgitating, barbering (which is what you are seeing...chewing the feathers rather than ripping them out) are all hormonal signs.

The cause of the hormones? Several things:

1) his age: ekkies can experience protracted teenage years, up to 7 years old in its extreme. It’s a naturally hormonal time

2) the last...year or so have just been BRUTAL for hormones for many owners, regardless of species. Usually you’ll have a spurt of spring hormones for a few weeks, then again in the fall, and then rest for the winter. A good number of us never saw the pause in the winter. It was fall hormones all the way through NOW. My boy only a few weeks ago finally started relenting

3) environmental factors: diet, touching, husbandry, etc.

The first tow you can’t do much about. This means hormones are usually in the background and you have to manage them as best you can. That’s why It’s this third one that I want to focus on For you.

Please go into more detail on the diet: what’s a typical meal day in the life of your boy? Understand diet has a HUGE influence not eh triggering of hormones. Anything high in carbs or fat can actually bring on hormones.

This means while your boy is showing exaggerated signs of hormonal behaviors, you have to cut out sources of starch (rice), sugar (fruit of any kind!!!!!!), and high fat foods like seeds and nuts.

You should be feeding almost exclusively vegetables, sprouts, pulses (lentils). Low calorie foods. You can substitute rice with extra riced cauliflower and broccoli.

Once the behavior tapers off because he’s getting older and the seasonal hormones have tapered off you can play around with introducing rice and fruits to a level that won’t trigger hormones.

GET YOUR BOY OFF ZUPREME PELLETS. NOW. Zupreme pellets are garbage and wholly incompatible with the eclectus diet. eclectus diet should be primarily veggies and grains. If you insist on a pellet, you can get away with unenriched pellets like TOPs or Goldenfeast.

Basically, if you take nothing else: research eclectus hormone control and the proper eclectus. I expect this is a big source of your barbering, age and hormonal season aside. No petting or touching anywhere except he head, veggie and grain diet, etc.

Again: research the diet. Ekkies can’t be fed like other parrots, they have very specific dietary requirements.

Lastly: are you doing any sort of training? Target training, recall/flight training, to name a few?

Also teach your boy to forage use a paper towel roll, cover his bowl with a paper towel, add a bunch of seeds in natural grass (like you see in Easter baskets, but not artificially colored).

They do bloodwork and it came out great. And i believe he weighted 350ish 2-3 months ago when i weighted him.

Thank you for all the great suggestions, im going to change up his diet.. definitely getting rid of zupreem (i have read this in couple of places too) and i been using goldenfeast for 2 months now. I am cutting on his fruits, fatty's, and seeds.

He is too spoiled due to my mother, i have tried target training but i been more worried about his condition that i havent done much.

why do you think he is scared of toys all of a sudden? Does that have to do with hormones as well?.. he would get scared and get down from his cage if he even sees people playing basketball or soccer outside the window. And should i get him some short of nest as you asked before? And where are some trustable and good websites i can get stuff fromm?

I can't really speak to the sudden aversion to toys. but you can start getting him to toys again by making them more enticing; hiding little treat in them to get him interacting again. Its particularly useful to get them into shreddable toys and foraging.

Get into target training again, and scale up to flighted recall (flying to you on command). Nothing helps burn off excess hormones like physical activity.

What should i do with him plucking?. Its getting pretty severe. One of his tail feather area looks red and swollen

I have taken some pictures

Aw what a handsome boy!

I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% certain what’s going on there. There is a LOT going on, and perhaps it’s just the angle but one photo looks like self mutilation is happening. Has he brought himself to bleeding at any point?

Thank you

He did get a little bit of blood on his butt tale
And he might have got his chest.. it looks like there is a tiny scalp

how do you feel about. Kings Cages: Pluck No More?. Ive read it works but idk if its harmful

Let me start with, birds and people are unique. We all have preferences and perceive subjects in various ways. Birds of the wild spend most of their day, looking for and eating food. This fills most of their day. At least it did in the wild, before they became caged pets. It now only takes minutes. I am not a fan of feeding birds seeds or pellets. Let me preface the following video's with this, different birds prefer a food of different size cuts or steamed versus boiled and many other things you will have to learn by observation. You can make "chop" and freeze it in ice cube trays, te;n dispense it at mealtime; after thawing it out to room temp. My main point is to reduce or do away with seeds and pellets. Use youtube.com and google.com to discover your birds proper diet. Use foraging toys to help them spend time and energy. Here are video examples.
[ame="https://youtu.be/V4okUpYb4-g"]Episode 1: Prevent Screaming & Plucking in Pet Parrots - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="https://youtu.be/0kIDemsihFQ"]Parrot Diet & Enrichment - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="https://youtu.be/c2Yi6qaLHas"]HOW AND WHAT TO FEED YOUR PARROTS | Chop, Food, Recipe, Diet - YouTube[/ame]
Like I say, different people have different idea's, even veternerians. jh