Opinion Needed....

My name is Jamie, and I have a 4 year old Quaker parrot named Gary. He has been plucking his feathers since he was about two. At about June 2016 he cut in the crease under his wing, and so the vet put him in a cone and stitched him up. After he was healed he began picking under there, so I took him back to the vet who said there was an infection so he had to do surgery and remove it all. All this happened over about two months. It was a continuous cycle of Gary being in a cone because he was picking, then it get taken off, and put back on. Eventually because he was getting depressed I looked up a DIY video for a sock sweater. This worked amazing!!! About a month and a half ago his wound finally looked like it was 100% healed. So I took the sock off, and about a week ago I noticed that he was picking under his wing in the same spot again. I've been put Betadine on the wound to keep it clean. I don't want to take him back to the vet because he will just another cone on and become dressed. I've been doing some reading that getting another bird can help with company, so I would like to know some your guys opinions on about what I should do? Think of getting him a companion in case he is lonely because I am working and going to college, or maybe try to sock sweater again? I've re done his cage with new toys and all different types multiple times, should I do that again? Based on Gary's action, I would say that he has the Quaker parrot mutilitation syndrome.

I'm glad you're reaching out.
So sorry to hear...
While we're waiting for the knowledgeable folks to come along, I know there are several great plucking threads... maybe use the SEARCH tab...
Good luck. What a sad thing to endure, for both of you. I praise your determination and love.

Awww I feel so bad for you and Gary! I really hope you find out what's going on with him. If your busy I'd say it's possibly that he's lonely but my only issue with that is the fact he is going after the same spot systematically...Hmm....

How is Gary doing? I just now saw this post, I have a female blue Quaker about a year old, and I love her to death! Anyway, I would not assume that getting a second bird will stop him from plucking...

Do you know why he started plucking to begin with at the age of 2? Have you had him his entire life, or did you get him at 2? Has he always just plucked under that wing, or was it initially all over? And now that the cone is off and he's plucking again, is he only plucking under that same wing, or is he plucking all over?

I'm asking those questions because when trying to solve plucking issues you first have to determine if it's a physical cause or a mental cause, and if it is a physical cause, is it just in one spot or is it body wide? Mental issues tend to cause all-over plucking, but not always. And if he is only plucking that one spot now it may be an indication that he's having pain or discomfort or itching under there, there could be nerve damage from the surgery, etc.

In the meantime I'd leave the sock sweater on him, that's a better idea than the cone if it worked, and it will prevent any more damage and infection while you try to get to the root cause.

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He is doing okay now. I had put him in another sweater and took it off today. It looks like it's all healed, and feather are starting to grow over the area. But it seems like that's part of the cycle, it heals and feathers grow back, and he starts all over again. I got him when he was a baby, he just started eating seed when I bought him. I don't know why he started plucking then, but it was a few feathers around his neck then it stopped. Until recently with the severe plucking and mutilating.

He is plucking only in that one spot now. But I think it is because when he cut under his wing he couldn't reach that spot so he found a spot that he could reach, and he could pluck and use that to take out his feelings with.

Another problem that only started happening after the surgery is that whenever he opens his wing to attempt to fly or stretch them up and out his rips open the skin where he had his surgery. So I don't know how to get that healed up 100%, because the vet and myself that it had.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I am so sorry. There's no pain worse than watching your fid suffer... You arw both in my thoughts and prayers.
Keep updating us... maybe somebody will have an idea or insight...

I'm sorry to hear that he keeps tearing his wing open, it will never fully heal if that keeps happening. But that also tells me that it is probably still causing him pain and/or discomfort and itchiness, which is probably at least part of the reason he keeps plucking that area.

It sounds to me that he has a lot of scar tissue in that area (adhesions), and this is why it keeps tearing open. I had to have my lower abdomen opened up wide, left to right, 3 times. I had 20+ staples and then dissolving stitches inside and outside under the staples. As a result of having the same area cut open and then having it heal shut so many times I developed a bunch of adhesions in that area, or just big areas of scar tissue. When I would bend over at my waist or stretch at my waist at all it hurt like hell. It felt like my stomach was being stretched apart beyond what it would go. I could hardly move without feeling the tugging, pulling, and ultimately tearing sensations from those adhesions. The scar tissue was just to plentiful and had grown in such a way that it was binding my muscles and skin and I basically couldn't move. So my surgeon had to go in with a scope and cut the adhesions. He actually just cut out and removed some of the scar tissue, and the scar tissue that was too small to cut out because he thought it would scar over again he just cut to let it loosen up. It made all the difference in the world.

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Thanks!! I guess I'll have to figure out how to eventually get around all this!

You know, there's no reason he can't wear clothes the rest of his life. We do, right? A sock sweater, a fringey collar, not the big uncomfortable cone but something that keeps him from plucking. Even if he had to wear a sweater for six months, and then something less restricting for another six months, that's not too bad if it breaks the habit. There's no law that says parrots have to be sane! If Gary were living in the wild, he would be too busy to pluck feathers so he's already living an unnatural life. Let him wear clothes for as long as he needs, maybe experiment with different materials.

Kentuckienne said:

You know, there's no reason he can't wear clothes the rest of his life. We do, right? A sock sweater, a fringey collar, not the big uncomfortable cone but something that keeps him from plucking. Even if he had to wear a sweater for six months, and then something less restricting for another six months, that's not too bad if it breaks the habit. There's no law that says parrots have to be sane! If Gary were living in the wild, he would be too busy to pluck feathers so he's already living an unnatural life. Let him wear clothes for as long as he needs, maybe experiment with different materials.

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Good suggestion, I know lots of parrots that wear a cone full-time, usually for the same reason of plucking, and the sweater sock idea is a lot more comfortable and less hindering than an E-Collar is. So I agree, until you get the wing to stop opening up I'd keep the sweater on him at all times. Not only will it allow new feathers to grow back and keep him from damaging his follicles to the point where feathers will no longer grow back, but if he wears the sweater for a long enough period of time and is unable to pluck for a long period of time, often this alone will stop the plucking. It's like they forget about being able to pluck or they stop "needing" to pluck or the "cravings" to pluck go away.

Something to think about trying with his wing is home physical therapy. I have a bachelor's degree in health science/pre-med and a master's degree in the same, and I had a very heavy emphasis in athletic training and biomechanics, as Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania has one of the country's foremost athletic training programs. I was thinking about Gary and his problem the other day (probably because I know how annoying the adhesions that I had were and I totally understand why he plucks that area) and though an avian vet/surgeon isn't going to be able to cut his adhesions to release them (not large enough an area), physical therapy is often used in both people and animals to both break up the scar tissue and as well as stretch the scar tissue out so it will no longer bother him or tear apart when he opens his wings up.

Doing physical therapy once daily on Gary's wing (while in the meantime he wears the sweater full-time) for 15-20 minutes can very quickly break the scar tissue up, and make it much more flexible to allow his wings to move freely without any tugging or ultimately ripping.
Think of it like working to loosen up hamstrings to allow a person's legs to move more freely and with more flexibility without any stretching or painful tugging or feeling of resistance, and ultimately tearing. With scar tissue under his wing preventing his wing to move freely, I'd design the physical therapy to consist of a combination of both massage therapy directly to the area for 10 minutes a day, this is to slowly break up the scar tissue, and then another 10 minutes a day of gentle, repetitive stretching of the area of scar tissue under the wing. This process of redesigning the collagen cells that make up scar tissue in order to allow them to stretch and move freely is called "Remodeling". It's a practice often done during physical therapy sessions, especially where an athlete that has to be able to move freely has had surgery or multiple surgeries, and has built up a large amount of very strong, high-tensile scar tissue that keeps him from moving a body part freely without pain and tension. And when we're talking about a bird's wings, they have many tendons and ligaments that attach right where his injury was, so he's most likely got a bunch of scar tissue on his tendons and ligaments that move his wing, along with scar tissue under and in his multiple skin layers, and this is what is causing him to tear.

I'd also start applying vitamin E once daily to the area under his wing that tears. We would do this to athletes that had knee surgery and had a large scar on the front of their knee, and that scar tissue kept them from stretching and moving their legs fully. Vitamin E not only would lubricate the outer scar tissue and skin prior to us doing scar massage, but vitamin E is able to penetrate skin and collagen cells when it is rubbed directly into the scar and the skin surrounding the scar. After the vitamin E is rubbed directly into the scar tissue and surrounding skin it basically loosens the high-tensile collagen fibers over time if applied daily, restoring the tissue's flexibility. We would just use a regular Vitamin E liquid capsule, puncture it, and rub the oil into the scar and all over the surrounding area. I would highly suggest buying a bottle of Vitamin E liquid capsules and rub the oil from the capsules into the area under his wing that is scarred and that tears open. Just doing this on a daily basis should stop the tearing in a matter of weeks if you apply the Vitamin E every day. And vitamin E is completely safe to use and there is no problem if he ingests it, unlike commercial lotions or ointments made for scar breakup, like Mederma.



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