I need serious help - Conure with her tail

[xNess]

Hey everyone. About a month ago I purchased a beautiful pineapple GCC. She's amazing. She's so very sweet. When I got her, her tail feathers looked weird, but I figured it would go away. She gets so much out of the cage time and we switched her diet to pellets.

We just went to the vet yesterday who said she looked so happy and whatnot. He said her feathers would come back nicely.

But this morning, we found the red little feathers on my shirt. Concerned, we checked her tail. She chewed one of them in half!

She put her back on my shoulder and not 5 seconds passed before she took said feather right out!

I don't know what to do. I'm introducing toys but she's scared of everything. So I have to do it slowly.

She's so sweet and is a cuddle bug.

Please help.

 

[xNess]

Her tail. I don't know.

 

[xNess]

I caught her preening to see if this helps.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Sorry to hear you are worrying about your baby. Looking at the photo, IMO the feather was definitely ready to come out. Even though the left side looks like it may have been gnawed on, the right side (the shaft) is perfectly dry.

How old is your GCC? How often do you bathe her? If she's still quite young, I'd say not to worry as many young birds have tattered tail feathers due to clumsiness.

Do you incorporate fresh fruits and veggies into her diet as well? It's great you've got her switched to pellets, and again, this is only my opinion, fresh fruits and veggies should still be offered.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Looking at the second photo (the tail), yes, she's barbering her tail feathers.

Again, don't panic just yet, please. When my B&G Macaw first came home to live with me, he, too, barbered his tail feathers for a while. He preened, and preened and preened, and they looked much like the tail of your conure.

Can you provide her with preening toys?

Like this?
PLUCKERS/OVERPREENERS

 

[xNess]

She's about 8 months old. She does preen a lot. I do offer her fruits and veggies. She loves apples and grapefruit! She literally likes to bathe herself in a fresh bowl of her drinking water, lol. I change it out every day so she bathes every day.

I try to. She's just so afraid and refuses to give it a chance. She only likes her ball, that rattles, and she gets so angry at it when she plays, lmao.

 

[xNess]

Here's another picture of her feathers, but on her body.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Hmm. I think your girl is nibbling on her back feathers, too. Not plucking - but over-preening. Hopefully she'll grow out of it.

Here is a phenomenal article for you:
http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/52217-plucking-search-answers.html

 

[xNess]

Thank you so much!
I hope she does as well. She also goes to bed when my six year old does - 8 PM, and gets up when he gets up, at 7:40 AM. So she gets a lot of sleep as well.

I just hope it's a phase and she's not unhappy or anything.

 

[Flboy]

When my JoJo came to me, his tail was shredded and all of his green feathers had heavy black bands. Four months now, beautiful tail and a good third to half of his feathers no longer have the black bands.

 

[xNess]

When my JoJo came to me, his tail was shredded and all of his green feathers had heavy black bands. Four months now, beautiful tail and a good third to half of his feathers no longer have the black bands.

You gave me hope.

 

[Flboy]

When my JoJo came to me, his tail was shredded and all of his green feathers had heavy black bands. Four months now, beautiful tail and a good third to half of his feathers no longer have the black bands.

You gave me hope.

Thanks!
Want to add, JoJo uses his tail feathers to scratch his neck. When they were stubbed, he had a difficult time making it work! I can see where this can easily cause a feather to fall out, not plucked!
You said she bathes in her drinking dish. Get her a nice big dog bowl, put it on the counter, she will love it, and you won't ruin your cage! You should find her super cuddly when wet and may be happy hiding inside your shirt. Great bonding time!

 

[Hawk]

Hey everyone. About a month ago I purchased a beautiful pineapple GCC. She's amazing. She's so very sweet. When I got her, her tail feathers looked weird, but I figured it would go away. She gets so much out of the cage time and we switched her diet to pellets.

We just went to the vet yesterday who said she looked so happy and whatnot. He said her feathers would come back nicely.

But this morning, we found the red little feathers on my shirt. Concerned, we checked her tail. She chewed one of them in half!

She put her back on my shoulder and not 5 seconds passed before she took said feather right out!

I don't know what to do. I'm introducing toys but she's scared of everything. So I have to do it slowly.

She's so sweet and is a cuddle bug.

Please help.

Hi....I read thru all the posts here and looked at the photo's....I can offer up a tip to try. it does look a bit dry and perhaps "over" preening which is usually a result of a bit of irritation which causes the bird to react by preening.

This may sound off the wall, but it is usually the factor....

Water from tap- Do you have a water softner? Sometimes we don't realizes or notice the salt in the water....however birds do and even the tiniest amount will dry and deplete the oil off their feathers. This causes the bird to try and preen using the oil gland at tail to oil itself up.

City water- Sometimes has too much chlorine in it which also can dry up oil.

Try this....backing down a bit with baths for a while. once a week is plenty sufficient. Too much bathing will wash away the oil. Add a couple drops of flax seed oil, or even fish oil to diet to help with oil gland production and it helps replenish the oil in the feathers. You'll see improvement.

Last but not least....use distilled water from store, or your own if preferred, and encourage that for the bath....it's pure and not harsh and will not wash away the oil from feathers.

Hope this helps....

 

[Flboy]

Hawk, right on!
Didn't realize what I was doing that was part of my fix, flax! My daily breakfast, I have a huge jar of mixed milled flax, chia, and hemp seed, a big scoop and I am good to go. My JoJo always shares it with me. My mix varies, depending on what I have on hand, I got tired of the 'tablespoon of this and that' routine, and in a duh moment started mixing everything in one jar.

 

[xNess]

When my JoJo came to me, his tail was shredded and all of his green feathers had heavy black bands. Four months now, beautiful tail and a good third to half of his feathers no longer have the black bands.

You gave me hope.

Thanks!
Want to add, JoJo uses his tail feathers to scratch his neck. When they were stubbed, he had a difficult time making it work! I can see where this can easily cause a feather to fall out, not plucked!
You said she bathes in her drinking dish. Get her a nice big dog bowl, put it on the counter, she will love it, and you won't ruin your cage! You should find her super cuddly when wet and may be happy hiding inside your shirt. Great bonding time!

Alright! Thank you! She just did it again in her bowl and she loves to be wrapped up in a towel and held like a baby!

Hey everyone. About a month ago I purchased a beautiful pineapple GCC. She's amazing. She's so very sweet. When I got her, her tail feathers looked weird, but I figured it would go away. She gets so much out of the cage time and we switched her diet to pellets.

We just went to the vet yesterday who said she looked so happy and whatnot. He said her feathers would come back nicely.

But this morning, we found the red little feathers on my shirt. Concerned, we checked her tail. She chewed one of them in half!

She put her back on my shoulder and not 5 seconds passed before she took said feather right out!

I don't know what to do. I'm introducing toys but she's scared of everything. So I have to do it slowly.

She's so sweet and is a cuddle bug.

Please help.

Hi....I read thru all the posts here and looked at the photo's....I can offer up a tip to try. it does look a bit dry and perhaps "over" preening which is usually a result of a bit of irritation which causes the bird to react by preening.

This may sound off the wall, but it is usually the factor....

Water from tap- Do you have a water softner? Sometimes we don't realizes or notice the salt in the water....however birds do and even the tiniest amount will dry and deplete the oil off their feathers. This causes the bird to try and preen using the oil gland at tail to oil itself up.

City water- Sometimes has too much chlorine in it which also can dry up oil.

Try this....backing down a bit with baths for a while. once a week is plenty sufficient. Too much bathing will wash away the oil. Add a couple drops of flax seed oil, or even fish oil to diet to help with oil gland production and it helps replenish the oil in the feathers. You'll see improvement.

Last but not least....use distilled water from store, or your own if preferred, and encourage that for the bath....it's pure and not harsh and will not wash away the oil from feathers.

Hope this helps....

We use the tap water. We live in PA so it comes from a well. I will definitely be using water from the bottles from now on and adding a splash of fish oil to her pellets! Thank you SO much!

She bathes on her own. Its usually when our back is turned for a minute, lol.

 

[Kyoto]

Yes looks like over preening to me too.
It might sound kind of silly, but if she sees you play with her toys she may eventually catch on and want to play too works with my Kyo and he keeps himself busy all day. I know because I have a camera on him to watch him while I'm at work.

Just have patience. I'm sure she will come around eventually

 

[veimar]

Has she molted yet? If not then she is getting into her first molt very soon. Hopefully she wouldn't overpreen her new feathers.

 

[Hawk]

Hawk, right on!
Didn't realize what I was doing that was part of my fix, flax! My daily breakfast, I have a huge jar of mixed milled flax, chia, and hemp seed, a big scoop and I am good to go. My JoJo always shares it with me. My mix varies, depending on what I have on hand, I got tired of the 'tablespoon of this and that' routine, and in a duh moment started mixing everything in one jar.

Amen Good buddy....Flax is very good for the shine that the feathers give off. Fish oil is good as well once or twice a week. I don't over do it.
As their diet consists of beneficial oils.

I have also Installed a 600 Dollar 5 filter system for water purification.
I don't trust tap water (city) or well water . My mirds drink and bathe in purified water...Plus I drink it and it's far far better than the best bottled water you can buy.

My wife wife and I are health nuts.

 

[Hawk]

You gave me hope.

Thanks!
Want to add, JoJo uses his tail feathers to scratch his neck. When they were stubbed, he had a difficult time making it work! I can see where this can easily cause a feather to fall out, not plucked!
You said she bathes in her drinking dish. Get her a nice big dog bowl, put it on the counter, she will love it, and you won't ruin your cage! You should find her super cuddly when wet and may be happy hiding inside your shirt. Great bonding time!

Alright! Thank you! She just did it again in her bowl and she loves to be wrapped up in a towel and held like a baby!

Hey everyone. About a month ago I purchased a beautiful pineapple GCC. She's amazing. She's so very sweet. When I got her, her tail feathers looked weird, but I figured it would go away. She gets so much out of the cage time and we switched her diet to pellets.

We just went to the vet yesterday who said she looked so happy and whatnot. He said her feathers would come back nicely.

But this morning, we found the red little feathers on my shirt. Concerned, we checked her tail. She chewed one of them in half!

She put her back on my shoulder and not 5 seconds passed before she took said feather right out!

I don't know what to do. I'm introducing toys but she's scared of everything. So I have to do it slowly.

She's so sweet and is a cuddle bug.

Please help.

Hi....I read thru all the posts here and looked at the photo's....I can offer up a tip to try. it does look a bit dry and perhaps "over" preening which is usually a result of a bit of irritation which causes the bird to react by preening.

This may sound off the wall, but it is usually the factor....

Water from tap- Do you have a water softner? Sometimes we don't realizes or notice the salt in the water....however birds do and even the tiniest amount will dry and deplete the oil off their feathers. This causes the bird to try and preen using the oil gland at tail to oil itself up.

City water- Sometimes has too much chlorine in it which also can dry up oil.

Try this....backing down a bit with baths for a while. once a week is plenty sufficient. Too much bathing will wash away the oil. Add a couple drops of flax seed oil, or even fish oil to diet to help with oil gland production and it helps replenish the oil in the feathers. You'll see improvement.

Last but not least....use distilled water from store, or your own if preferred, and encourage that for the bath....it's pure and not harsh and will not wash away the oil from feathers.

Hope this helps....

We use the tap water. We live in PA so it comes from a well. I will definitely be using water from the bottles from now on and adding a splash of fish oil to her pellets! Thank you SO much!

She bathes on her own. Its usually when our back is turned for a minute, lol.

We have well water as well, and had it tested, we were shocked silly at the amount of chemicals in the water. So we have a main softner and filtering system, plus a secondary filtering system of 5 filters. The water is so pure now is unbelievable. My birds scratch less now and do not preen as much or often, their feathers now are brilliant.

 

[xNess]

UPDATE:

Thank you to everyone who posted! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to reply faster. I'm a full-time student and the primary caretaker of my six year old step-son, so I'm a tad busy. But she's always on my shoulder with me whatever I do!

She's definitely chewing on her tail. I just watched her do it. I changed her water to bottle-water only since we cannot afford anything right now otherwise. Today I am going to Walmart to try to find the flaxseed oil to drop some in her food!

I watched her preen her tail compared to the rest of her body. Though her top feathers do look a bit chewed, it is definitely not as bad as her tail. She definitely DOES NOT like the looks of her tail. She's a lot more harsh on it, and with her body, she actually runs her beak through like she is supposed to. On her tail, she just chews the bits off.

I don't know if she has molted or not. When we got her, her tail was like this as I said, and we got the pin feathers off of her within the few days. She allowed us to. That's how much she had. Now, she doesn't have any, and it's been a week or two. So I cannot confirm whether or not she is molting.

I can supply pictures as an up-to-date thing if anyone is interested. I'm still worried.
Whenever she is on my shoulder and preening, I'm trying to nuzzle her a little bit to see if she can stop.

I really, REALLY hope it hasn't become a habitutal thing. I will be very upset because I know how the pet store was and she's been in there all her life.


If anyone would like pictures, PLEASE let me know.
I don't want to be alone in my worrying.
Because I'm really anxious about it.