Horrible Over Preening

[MaraWentz]

She wold throw it out. Could never get her to it dehydrated or cooked. She loves peas tough What are the 8 most common allergies?

 

[MaraWentz]

Nd wait jsut researched her pellets. Main ingredient is ground corn, which would explain why she is preening a whole lot more. Then I remembered she had pellets in her original food and she maybe at 10 of those pellets a day and over preened but not as bad as she does now and those had corn. I'm hoping its a corn allergy. I switched her back to her old food and picked out all the pellets and corn. Suprisingly she is eating it normally and not throwing it every where.

 

[Gshepdog]

I have a dumb question: is she alone in the cage?

I once had two cockatiels and one was plucked clean. Thought she was doing it to herself. Found out after we lost her sister, that actually the sister was plucking the feathers on her sister! The plucked one grew back all her feathers and never touched them.

Lee

 

[MaraWentz]

Yep we have just her now. She used to be with her sister at the pet store and I thought maybe they were overpreening themselves together, but I took Erin to see her sister at the store a week or so ago and her sister is still raggedy looking but Erin is twice as bad

 

[Sarge]

Sorry to resurrect old threads but this sounds just like my jack.
What ever happened in this situation?

 

[LaManuka]

Again doing a Lazarus and resurrecting this old thread ... aloe was mentioned earlier, presumably aloe vera which tastes horribly bitter. Wondering if it’s safe to use straight from the leaf on an overpreener and if anyone has any experience or results with it?

 

[Scott]

Sometimes we never get updates or closure from a well-traveled thread! Plucking is one of the more difficult behaviors to understand and remediate. This thread covers many considerations and offers a variety of ideas: http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/52217-plucking-search-answers.html

 

[Laurasea]

Sometimes we never get updates or closure from a well-traveled thread! Plucking is one of the more difficult behaviors to understand and remediate. This thread covers many considerations and offers a variety of ideas: http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/52217-plucking-search-answers.html

I hate when we don't get updates!!! I'm all emotionally invested, then left hanging!!! Then I always imagine the worst outcomes....

 

[LaManuka]

Hello Bellagrey if you’re wondering where your post went it’s under “Overpreening Grey” and has been replied to with lots of info which I hope you find helpful. I’m very sorry you and your grey are going thru this, it must be awful!

I sincerely hope things improve for you both very soon! Much love ❤️

 

[ChristaNL]

I hate when we don't get updates!!! I'm all emotionally invested, then left hanging!!! Then I always imagine the worst outcomes....

Yup.
"No news is goods news" usually is not true.


I tried aloe on Sunny after reading about it here and it just annoyed her.
(I also put some on the greys at the same time - who are not barbering/plucking- as a very unscientific controllgroup.)
I diluted it in a nice fresh new spraybottle (after cleaning it) but no joy...

 

[EllenD]

I just read through this entire thread, and the problem I'm seeing here is that even to-date now, this Goffin has not ever been taken to a CAV or Avian Specialist for blood-work or any Cultures! It's impossible to start successfully treating a self-mutilator without first ruling-out a physical cause, such as disease, illness, allergy, nutritional deficiency, etc. Instead, you're just guessing and spending more money than the CAV visit and the testing would take. The OP wrote that the bird will not be going to the vet until October, and I don't know if they even plan on having blood-work and at least a fecal culture done at this upcoming appointment or not. I hope so, as unfortunately stopping this may be as simple as reading the blood-work results or finding a horrible fungal infection throughout the GI Tract.

The other issue is that the OP never mentioned what brand/type of food the bird is eating, but did mention that it contained both "corn and pellets in the food", which to me indicates a cheap, bagged seed-mix that contains cheap, colored pellets and pieces of corn, as the bags of parrot food at Walmart and grocery stores have. It's obvious they are not feeding simply a natural-pellet as the staple and then a low-fat, high-quality seed-mix that contains no sunflower seeds, no cheap pellets, no nuts, no pieces of corn, etc. So this could be causing an allergy, a nutritional deficiency, or both. Instead of buying a high-quality, natural pellet they are trying vitamin powders and pet-store feather deterrents, and these are typically not the answer.

The bottom-line here is that the bird needs to get to a CAV with feather-destructive behavior experience, needs to have a full blood work-up and at least a Fecal Culture done, and then go from there. This could be something as simple as a nutritional deficiency due to the poor diet, an allergy to the poor diet or an environmental factor, or it could be something as serious as a liver or kidney disease...no way to know without the bloods and the cultures.