Ripped his tail apart ... ?

<--- this little emojee's tail looks just like my Brady's does now.

Green pallid.
Born 11-1-12. We visited with him 3-4 times a week from the minute he was born.
Came home 1-7-12.
Started talking 2 weeks ago (says about 6 things, he just exploded one day with his language)

The only thing I've noticed that may be a little different is that at the parrot store they wean to 100% pellets. I don't agree with this. I think pellets with some occasional seed and fresh foods is best. At first, Brady avoided any seeds or fresh foods and favored the pellets. This past week he's REALLY taken a liking to spinach and safflower seeds (he picks them out when I mix a few of them with the pellets).

The passed week he's lost 3 or 4 tail feathers. Today..... his entire tail is GONE. It's just a stub with a few spines and a bunch of messy little ends everywhere.

No new stresses. He seems happy, bright, alert, talkative. No injury that I know of. It's REMOTELY possible that my daughter's cat got ahold of his tail through the cage bars (the cat is usually confined to the basement apartment where my daughter is - but it does sneak up on occasion).
However, I've seen him digging at it so I think he's the culprit.

Any ideas ?

It sounds like a potential plucking issue, not a dietary one. He actually sounds like he is working towards (by trying new foods) a very nutritional and varied diet. It takes most of us a good couple months to get our new birds off whatever terrible diet they were fed in their prior homes. Even if he was getting the worst diet in the world, it would take a lot longer than a couple months for diet to reach the point it is affecting feather health (especially that severely, in that localized of an area). Kiwi (from what information we got with him) was fed pretty much 100% pellets for the first 10 years of his life. Even after that, his feather health wasn't at a point they were falling out unrelated to natural molting. His years of bad nutrition made the ends of the "long" feathers ratty and he was overall dull in color, but he wasn't missing giant patches! His overall appearance improved in under a year after we transitioned him to a balanced diet. Given his young age, recent dietary improvements, short time on a "bad" diet, I would look more towards behavioral or possibly a skin infection as the cause rather than nutritional deficiency. In any case, he really needs to have a avian vet look at him. The vet can determine the cause of the feather loss, and give professional advice on how to treat it. He can also answer any questions you have on nutrition or general care. In the meantime, keep introducing as many healthy, non-toxic new foods as you can into his diet. The more varied the diet, the better! And in case it is behavioral, give him more "distraction" toys he can chew or forage with to teach him positive behaviors and distract him from any further feather pulling. Best of luck and see a vet.

I've been reading it's actually a fairly common thing in baby Quakers? Perhaps related to flight frustration or a bad first clip ? The one thing I have noticed is that when Brady tries to fly he drops like a rock and squeaks when he lands (as if it knocks the wind out of him) . My Brock never did that - even when he was clipped he would glide to a landing.

I'm absolutely not against a vet visit just want to see if anyone else had similar issues and/or suggestions/ideas. Our avian vet is quite the distance away and if it's not something he has to be seen for right away, I'd rather avoid the stress of transporting in sub zero temps and horrible roads.

I would first think it's typical behavior for a young parrot... many young birds in captivity become "duck butts" because they so easily destroy their tail feathers. It's typically not until they start getting into maturity (1+ years in age) that they stop damaging their tail feathers.

At 3 months, nearly 4, this would be my guess, which goes along with what BrockNBrady said.


It's also highly abnormal for parrots under the age of a year old to two years old to pluck and is typically a sign of a medical problem if they do. Rarely do young birds pluck due to behavioral issues.