applefruit
New member
- Jul 15, 2022
- 1
- 10
- Parrots
- green cheek conure
My green cheek conure, Apple (almost 10 years old, diet: 90% harrison’s adult lifetime, 10% treats (dried/fresh fruit, seed mix, millet, nutriberries)), has been in an intense hormonal phase for the past 6-8 weeks (nest seeking/building behavior, regurgitation, humping). This has been, by far, the longest and most intense hormonal phase I have seen him go through.
Last weekend, I noticed a small open wound on his left foot. It didn’t look too serious, and I had noticed that he had shredded one of his wood perches so much that it had become splintered and rough causing his nails to sharpen on them. I assume the cut must have been inflicted while he was gripping this perch and shredding it, so I promptly removed the perch and hoped he would improve over the next few days.
The next day, his other foot was injured to a larger extent than the left foot the day before. I was puzzled as to how this could happen considering he no longer had access to the perch, but I chalked it up to having not noticed it yesterday. In any event, I resolved to take him to the vet the next morning.
Upon waking up the next morning, I noticed both of his feet were heavily wounded. I immediately took him to our regular avian vet where he was cleaned up and given antibiotics/anti-inflammatory by injection. The wounds are all external and thankfully not deep according to the vet. I was given Metacam and Silver Sulfadiazine to take home. The doctor’s intuition was that he was self-inflicting, but given that he is around us during the day non-stop and has no history of behavioral problems, I thought it was unlikely - during the day he seems normal albeit with strong hormonal behaviors.
But I became suspicious that it was happening during the night when we can’t see him, so I monitored him with a camera as he slept through the night. While he slept peacefully for a few hours, I noticed the first night after the vet that he would start getting more and more restless in the middle of the night: he would be shifting and preening more and more intensely until he reached a very nervous state. At the peak of this behavior, he would lunge at the air while making a low hissing noise, attack his own feet as if something were on them, preen very intensely (but no feather-picking) while audibly breathing/hissing (this is the most characteristic behavior of that state), and twitch his head in the same sort of manner he does when something irritates his nostrils or he is sprayed by water. This would carry on for 30 mins up to 2 hours for the next few nights, and this behavior NEVER occurs during the day. I know this because he’s literally around us the entire day as we work from home. As the sun rises and morning approaches, he completely drops this behavior. It only ever happens as he wakes from sleep in the middle of the night and only for an hour or two after that.
During these bouts, he would attempt to open up the wounds that were healing up quite well, although we intervened and managed to prevent most of the damage by distracting him or moving him around. But it’s now quite clear that the doctor was right that the wounds were initially self-inflicted at the time when he was sleeping unmonitored. After the 3rd night which saw him in this phase for 2 hours before he calmed down, I returned to the vet and explained all of this to him. His hunch is that the hormones are causing this, perhaps in the form of neuropathic pain. He doesn’t have an explanation for why this happens at that specific time. I asked him about the possibility of mites since that seems to be the only thing that is specific to that time, but he said that mites are almost unheard of in indoor birds, that it would manifest in different areas, and that it wouldn’t be solely exclusive to nights.
The doctor prescribed gabapentin (.08 ml/day). Last night, I gave it to Apple right before bedtime (7:30 PM), and he seemed to sleep through most of the night peacefully, but around 4 AM it started again. Same sort of behavior – although less focus on self-mutilation and more on general nervousness, twitching, and that bizarre preening while hissing behavior. I’ve asked the doctor if I can give him a second dose of gabapentin as the first dose may be wearing off by that time, which he approved of.
I hope that this will correct the issue, but I am truly at my wit’s end. Hours of my own research have yielded nothing quite resembling this. In any case I have read about that somewhat resembles Apple’s, there’s always a huge factor that differentiates it: either the behavior isn’t specific to a short burst at nighttime, they have other symptoms, there’s feather-picking involved, etc. I have considered mites, avian herpesvirus, PDD, and environmental, but nothing seems to make sense and the doctor doesn’t think any of them are likely. I have him in a hospital cage with almost nothing except two perches that I know can’t harm him. Nothing else has changed in his environment prior to this, and he has gone through much more stressful environmental changes just fine in the past. The only anomaly is this hormonal phase which continues to be very intense. I literally cannot give him a toy without him regurgitating on it, he cannot sit still with us on the couch anymore as he runs away under the cushions to find a nest, and any toy that can be destroyed will instantly be shredded for nest material. This morning as he was in his fit, I took him out and he immediately started prancing around in that mating sort of way (not sure if there’s a term for it) with a fluffy little mane and his tail dragging behind him.
If anyone has anything that can possibly help, I would be forever grateful. Tonight I will give him a 2nd dose of gabapentin at 4 AM as that seemed to relax him through most of the night, but I have lost so much sleep and sanity over this that I am about to go crazy. Other than the above-mentioned, his poops are great, his weight is stable, he had fecal workup done recently and everything is good. He’s super active and generally so happy. His wounds are healing well although he slightly still prefers the less wounded foot when he’s resting. But I know if I didn’t intervene at nights, he would open them all up again. Can this all be hormones and, if so, what else can I do?
Please help.
First picture: Him at the vet. Second and third picture from today, his wounds are healing well.
Last weekend, I noticed a small open wound on his left foot. It didn’t look too serious, and I had noticed that he had shredded one of his wood perches so much that it had become splintered and rough causing his nails to sharpen on them. I assume the cut must have been inflicted while he was gripping this perch and shredding it, so I promptly removed the perch and hoped he would improve over the next few days.
The next day, his other foot was injured to a larger extent than the left foot the day before. I was puzzled as to how this could happen considering he no longer had access to the perch, but I chalked it up to having not noticed it yesterday. In any event, I resolved to take him to the vet the next morning.
Upon waking up the next morning, I noticed both of his feet were heavily wounded. I immediately took him to our regular avian vet where he was cleaned up and given antibiotics/anti-inflammatory by injection. The wounds are all external and thankfully not deep according to the vet. I was given Metacam and Silver Sulfadiazine to take home. The doctor’s intuition was that he was self-inflicting, but given that he is around us during the day non-stop and has no history of behavioral problems, I thought it was unlikely - during the day he seems normal albeit with strong hormonal behaviors.
But I became suspicious that it was happening during the night when we can’t see him, so I monitored him with a camera as he slept through the night. While he slept peacefully for a few hours, I noticed the first night after the vet that he would start getting more and more restless in the middle of the night: he would be shifting and preening more and more intensely until he reached a very nervous state. At the peak of this behavior, he would lunge at the air while making a low hissing noise, attack his own feet as if something were on them, preen very intensely (but no feather-picking) while audibly breathing/hissing (this is the most characteristic behavior of that state), and twitch his head in the same sort of manner he does when something irritates his nostrils or he is sprayed by water. This would carry on for 30 mins up to 2 hours for the next few nights, and this behavior NEVER occurs during the day. I know this because he’s literally around us the entire day as we work from home. As the sun rises and morning approaches, he completely drops this behavior. It only ever happens as he wakes from sleep in the middle of the night and only for an hour or two after that.
During these bouts, he would attempt to open up the wounds that were healing up quite well, although we intervened and managed to prevent most of the damage by distracting him or moving him around. But it’s now quite clear that the doctor was right that the wounds were initially self-inflicted at the time when he was sleeping unmonitored. After the 3rd night which saw him in this phase for 2 hours before he calmed down, I returned to the vet and explained all of this to him. His hunch is that the hormones are causing this, perhaps in the form of neuropathic pain. He doesn’t have an explanation for why this happens at that specific time. I asked him about the possibility of mites since that seems to be the only thing that is specific to that time, but he said that mites are almost unheard of in indoor birds, that it would manifest in different areas, and that it wouldn’t be solely exclusive to nights.
The doctor prescribed gabapentin (.08 ml/day). Last night, I gave it to Apple right before bedtime (7:30 PM), and he seemed to sleep through most of the night peacefully, but around 4 AM it started again. Same sort of behavior – although less focus on self-mutilation and more on general nervousness, twitching, and that bizarre preening while hissing behavior. I’ve asked the doctor if I can give him a second dose of gabapentin as the first dose may be wearing off by that time, which he approved of.
I hope that this will correct the issue, but I am truly at my wit’s end. Hours of my own research have yielded nothing quite resembling this. In any case I have read about that somewhat resembles Apple’s, there’s always a huge factor that differentiates it: either the behavior isn’t specific to a short burst at nighttime, they have other symptoms, there’s feather-picking involved, etc. I have considered mites, avian herpesvirus, PDD, and environmental, but nothing seems to make sense and the doctor doesn’t think any of them are likely. I have him in a hospital cage with almost nothing except two perches that I know can’t harm him. Nothing else has changed in his environment prior to this, and he has gone through much more stressful environmental changes just fine in the past. The only anomaly is this hormonal phase which continues to be very intense. I literally cannot give him a toy without him regurgitating on it, he cannot sit still with us on the couch anymore as he runs away under the cushions to find a nest, and any toy that can be destroyed will instantly be shredded for nest material. This morning as he was in his fit, I took him out and he immediately started prancing around in that mating sort of way (not sure if there’s a term for it) with a fluffy little mane and his tail dragging behind him.
If anyone has anything that can possibly help, I would be forever grateful. Tonight I will give him a 2nd dose of gabapentin at 4 AM as that seemed to relax him through most of the night, but I have lost so much sleep and sanity over this that I am about to go crazy. Other than the above-mentioned, his poops are great, his weight is stable, he had fecal workup done recently and everything is good. He’s super active and generally so happy. His wounds are healing well although he slightly still prefers the less wounded foot when he’s resting. But I know if I didn’t intervene at nights, he would open them all up again. Can this all be hormones and, if so, what else can I do?
Please help.
First picture: Him at the vet. Second and third picture from today, his wounds are healing well.
