Hopefulworld
New member
- Apr 23, 2018
- 22
- 1
- Parrots
- Charlie (aka. Coco) - Green cheek conure - Born August 12, 2017
My mom and I have a green cheek conure, who just turned 1. However, we've noticed he's constantly preening. He has tons of toys, which we change so he doesn't get bored, and we take him out and play with him every chance we get. The vet says he's a very well socialized bird. He plays, talks, sings and does small tricks like dancing to a specific song or giving kisses.
Often though, in the middle of playing, dancing, or just sitting on us, he will stop and preen. I'm a bit worried because it's constant. As in he'll have just finished 5 minutes of cleaning himself, and then 2 minutes later he's back at it. He doesn't have any bald spots, is a healthy bird and is on a very well balanced diet. We're just worried his preening has become a bit obsessive, almost like he's a neat freak. The only incident of a feather that shouldn't have fallen out was a flight feather. He was having a shower with my mom and something startled him. He took off and had a bit of a rough landing in the shower. 30 seconds later his big flight feather, very literally, fell out. What was worrying about this situation was there seemed to be a bit of blood on the tip of the feather that is connected to him, but our bird never made a sound of pain.
Anyway, should we be worried by what seems to be excessive cleaning of his feathers? Or is it normal that they should spend a long time cleaning, and then let's say you pet them or give them a scratch on the shoulders, the clean themselves all over again? As I'm writing this, he's cleaned himself at least 5 times, in no more than 15-20 minutes (scratching and cleaning feathers).
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Often though, in the middle of playing, dancing, or just sitting on us, he will stop and preen. I'm a bit worried because it's constant. As in he'll have just finished 5 minutes of cleaning himself, and then 2 minutes later he's back at it. He doesn't have any bald spots, is a healthy bird and is on a very well balanced diet. We're just worried his preening has become a bit obsessive, almost like he's a neat freak. The only incident of a feather that shouldn't have fallen out was a flight feather. He was having a shower with my mom and something startled him. He took off and had a bit of a rough landing in the shower. 30 seconds later his big flight feather, very literally, fell out. What was worrying about this situation was there seemed to be a bit of blood on the tip of the feather that is connected to him, but our bird never made a sound of pain.
Anyway, should we be worried by what seems to be excessive cleaning of his feathers? Or is it normal that they should spend a long time cleaning, and then let's say you pet them or give them a scratch on the shoulders, the clean themselves all over again? As I'm writing this, he's cleaned himself at least 5 times, in no more than 15-20 minutes (scratching and cleaning feathers).
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