[SOLVED] Feather plucking or molting???

[CoolBeagle]

Hello all my around 2 year old cockatiel has I believe just started feather plucking. He mostly seems to pull out down feathers so maybe could be molting but I have a more likely theory. He recently got into a pretty big accident and really hurt himself by flying into a wall. I took him to the vet and he was all ok, he had broken a feather which they removed. I then gave him pain medicine for a couple days (which he absolutely hated!). I think all that stress made him start plucking, is there anything I can do to help curb this behavior (like trying to distract him when he starts plucking)? I know diet can be a problem and I don't feed him as much veggies as I should so I'm going to start giving him more. I would like to try and take him to the vet soon but the emergency visit because we thought he broke his wing was extremely expensive, I do start my new job soon so I will bring him as soon as I'm financially able. To end I feed him plenty of pellets with seeds as a snack, he is out of his cage all day and practically only uses it to sleep, he has many toys including 2 foraging ones filled with treats, and he loves me and my whole family. Let me know if you guys have any ideas since he just started I'm hoping I can curb it with your help. It could just be molting since it is mostly powder down feathers I see but I just want to be sure.

Update: I did some more reading and talked with other parrot community members and I think he's just molting because its really only powder downs he's taking out and he is not focus grooming one area, so this one has a happy ending yay

 

[Cottonoid]

I'm glad you figured this out! Albert is an adorable name, btw.