Conure pulling out her pin feathers

First things first I am going to call my vet in the morning, but I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had any experience with this. My CBC is going through her yearly most and has pin feathers everywhere. She seemed like her normally molty self yesterday, but as of this morning the preening now is non stop. If she's not eating she's preening obsessively and I had her sitting on my chest when I witnessed her reach down screech and rip a fresh squishy pin feather out. I checked her over and she doesn't seem to have any blood anywhere but when I went to clean her cage for the night I found all squishy bloody pin feathers stuck to the wall behind her cage that she must have flung. Is this considered your typically feather plucking? She seems to be leaving her fully formed feathers alone and only plucking newer smaller pin feathers /:

Okay, generally one does not make a hard and fast classification of Plucking without an Avian Vet verification.

One of the tests that your Avian Vet may suggest (and I would recommend it) is to sample the area your Conure is working heavily and another area of the body and have the samples tested.

In the meantime, sit down and make a list of anything that has or may have changed in the last 30 -60 days: diet, sleep, household activities, new members, visitors, repair work, painting, chemicals, toxins, etc...

Thank-you for picking-up on this quickly and responding quickly!!!

Very wise to schedule a vet visit now rather than later. Sailboat gave you some helpful ideas. It sounds like this is a brand new behavior for Penelope, there's a possibility her molt is making her uncomfortable so she's removing the offending pinfeathers, birds will temporarily overpreen during a molt sometimes and stop once the new feathers are fully grown. Hopefully this will not become a habit. Frequent baths will help to relieve the itchy feathers and the quills will dissolve a bit faster.

Best of luck at the vet visit, please let us know how it turns out.

Thanks everyone for the quick responses! We have a vet appointment for Tuesday and they're going to do a wellness exam and possibly a skin test & blood work to rule out fungal or bacterial infection. I've never seen or had blood work done before as P's my first bird is it something I should be worried about? Thankfully I have a very good vet, but it always made me nervous since she seems to struggle so much at the vets to begin with I can't imagine how'd she'd be to get blood pulled on her.

KrisandPenelope said:

Thanks everyone for the quick responses! We have a vet appointment for Tuesday and they're going to do a wellness exam and possibly a skin test & blood work to rule out fungal or bacterial infection. I've never seen or had blood work done before as P's my first bird is it something I should be worried about? Thankfully I have a very good vet, but it always made me nervous since she seems to struggle so much at the vets to begin with I can't imagine how'd she'd be to get blood pulled on her.

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They normally take blood from a toenail clipped a little bit too short, not with the whole needle and vial kit like with us, if thats what you were thinking. Hope that eases you a little bit. Its still a little nerve wracking though.

Just lending some conure-solidarity...
Good luck!!!
*Patagonian hugzszszsz*

If you are seeing a good Avian vet do not worry about the blood draw. It sucks and you are not going to like watching them do it to your baby. Maybe they will take the bird out of the room. They hit the vein in the wing it is not that scary. Back in the 90s when we first took out Senegal to the vets they did a blood draw to check to see if all was good and took blood for the DNA test. I don't think DNA was as easy to test back than. They might try and hit the Jugular vein too... That would be scary. They could go for the foot vein too.

Good luck that is scary that your bird is doing this. hope all is well. Be strong it will be ok.

snowflake311 said:

If you are seeing a good Avian vet do not worry about the blood draw. It sucks and you are not going to like watching them do it to your baby. Maybe they will take the bird out of the room. They hit the vein in the wing it is not that scary. Back in the 90s when we first took out Senegal to the vets they did a blood draw to check to see if all was good and took blood for the DNA test. I don't think DNA was as easy to test back than. They might try and hit the Jugular vein too... That would be scary. They could go for the foot vein too.

Good luck that is scary that your bird is doing this. hope all is well. Be strong it will be ok.

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For something simple like this they wouldnt just clip the toenail? Luckily theyve never brought out the needle for Loco, but I guess different vets use different methods. Im sure with better technology less blood will be needed as well.
Sorry if I wrongly eased your worries, OP, either way Im sure he will be fine! Taking blood is one of the simpler things in medicine.

Thanks everyone! We kept the pin feather pulling efforts down today by a couple of showers and distracting her by either playing hide and seek where she flies to find us or by playing music that makes her sing. We figured if she's singing she can't be plucking! Lets hope its just a case of a really itchy irritable molt.

UPDATE Conure pulling out her pin feathers

So me and P got back from the vets office. She checked all her areas where she was pulling the pin feathers and ruled out any skin infections. Her overall wellness exam was good! Vet thinks that since this was Ps first big molt it was irritating and she must have pulled one pin and it felt better and released some endorphins which lead to her pulling more out. So she got sent home with an anti inflammatory and the rain misting spray with instructions to keep her mouth as busy as possible. My vet is awesome and said we will keep in touch through emails and phone to make sure we nipped the behavior in the butt!

Re: UPDATE Conure pulling out her pin feathers

KrisandPenelope said:

So me and P got back from the vets office. She checked all her areas where she was pulling the pin feathers and ruled out any skin infections. Her overall wellness exam was good! Vet thinks that since this was Ps first big molt it was irritating and she must have pulled one pin and it felt better and released some endorphins which lead to her pulling more out. So she got sent home with an anti inflammatory and the rain misting spray with instructions to keep her mouth as busy as possible. My vet is awesome and said we will keep in touch through emails and phone to make sure we nipped the behavior in the butt!

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Good to hear. I love when people give us updates. When she is done with her molt I hope all is well.

Not to resurrect a somewhat older thread, but I'm at a cross roads of what to do next with my Penelope. Unfortunately the pin feather plucking has continued after religious bathing, extra foraging in the cage, and the anti-inflammatory. My vet has recommended to put her in one of those fleece collars to help stop the behavior from getting worse, but my concern is the reason for her plucking hasn't been figured out or addressed and its driving me nuts! At our vet visit before thanksgiving they did a physical checked her over and didn't see anything concerning. So now I am between taking her back to the vet and having them recheck her and do some more extensive diagnostics maybe a fecal and blood work? She is eating, playing,and acting normal until she gets into a some crazed preening session and then the feather plucking and pin pulling behavior starts up. Any advice or suggestions would be awesome as a first time parront I'm stressed! Just as a background on her she's flighted, is out of her cage a minimum of 5 hours a day, eats harrisons pellets, veggies, and then nutriberries and goldenfeast as foraging treats, and shes a year and half old going through a big molt.