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Post by tweetiepie on Aug 25, 2005 5:51:14 GMT -7
Hi,
Mylo had dermatitus in June. Due to this, he had plucked all his back, legs and chest. The derm. was bought under control with the help of my vet as well as spraying on diluted TCP.
Mys then grew a lovely set of feathers and was fully feathered again and looked just as handsome as ever.
To my dismay, day before last, I found that he had taken all his feathers out of his legs again and has started on his chest. All on his chest at the moment is down but that will take 2 secs to pull out.
Ive started to TCP him so the taste will distract him.
Would this plucking be because maybe he got the taste of plucking when he did it when he had the derm. problem? He is not stressed... he's a happy chappy. Always singing his beak off... he's out every night, puts himself away. He had one new toy in his cage recently which he loves and hasn't stopped playing with it.
I just dont know why he has started it again. Can it be related to anything else other than stress and boredom? I would hate to think this is the factor as I would feel to be a useless 'mum'. I know he isnt bored cos of all his toys. His food hasn't changed, in fact nothing has changed at all other than he has just had his 4th birthday (which I missed but will be giving him a birthday present in September which is when I bought him home!!!).
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Post by Jane on Aug 25, 2005 9:08:21 GMT -7
It can have all sorts of physical causes, these include bacterial or fungal causes, folliculitis, dermatitis, low blood calcium, giardia (which can cause an itchy skin and lead to plucking), liver or kidney disease. Heavy metal toxicity, particularly zinc, can lead to plucking. Sometimes a localised irritation can lead to plucking.
Psychological causes include boredom and stress.
It is very complex though because some Greys pluck when they are in loving homes getting a lot of care and attention with a lot of stimulation and plenty of toys, while others are neglected and abandoned and never pluck.
Sometimes they get into the habit of plucking and it can be difficult to stop. It certainly doesn't sound as if Mylo is bored. I mentioned in another thread about "Shredders" which is a roll of woven palm leaf for chewing up and shredding. I wonder if this sort of toy might help to distract him from plucking.
Jane
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Post by tweetiepie on Aug 25, 2005 10:50:14 GMT -7
Thanks Jane,
I bought him some shredders before and he just stared at it and didn't know what to do with it !!!
Oh well... i will just keep an eye but will try not to get stressed about it this time... although hard that will be.
Thanks for the advice.
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Post by lidiam on Aug 25, 2005 11:14:55 GMT -7
Tweetie,
Is there any possibility you could take a few days off work and spend all the time with Mylo, so he doesn't have a chance to pluck? Perhaps if it were possible, you could distract him from it sufficiently that he doesn't go back to doing it.
I know that seems a little extreme, especially if you lose money, but perhaps that extra attention might help. I know that when Joshua comes back from the vet's when I've been away (sometimes for six weeks at a time), I have to spend a lot of extra time with him to bring him around to his comfort zone.
Just a thought.
Lidia
ps. Joshua won't go near shredders either, he prefers to shred his newpaper carpet!
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Post by tweetiepie on Aug 26, 2005 3:30:51 GMT -7
Well, Mylo seems to pluck when he is excited and moreso when I am playing with him through his cage. He kinda does it as part of his play. So obviously when he does this, i say NO and turn away and when he stops I go back and so on. Also I am aware that if you keep telling your bird not to do it everytime he does it whilst still having eye contact, he will think this is the way to get attention and he will think its a good thing.
Its very difficult to balance. When he is out of his cage and just sitting on his perch, he will have a big of a pull but most of the time he is amusing himself on his stand.
I think i may inadventently encouraged it when he had his dermatitus on his back and i was spending alot of time watching him and looking at him when he was scratching his back (was making sure he wasnt drawing blood etc) and so he may have thought this is the way to go.
Oh woe.... !! lol
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Post by lidiam on Aug 26, 2005 4:20:53 GMT -7
Tweetie,
As Jane said, distraction is the thing! Shredders don't work for Mylo, so you have to find something that does work. Someone said in one of the other threads, that she provided a spool of calculator paper inside the cage, and this sounds like a good idea.
Perhaps when he is inside his cage you should not play with him, but rather let him find his own way to amuse himself, and maybe also distract him when he's excited and in the cage, since that is when he mostly does it.
Lidia
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BellaBird
Weaned Todd
Bellabird
Joined: March 2005
Posts: 50
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Post by BellaBird on Aug 28, 2005 15:57:13 GMT -7
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Post by tweetiepie on Aug 30, 2005 5:50:09 GMT -7
Thanks for the link Alyssa and for the advice from everyone else x
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linzie
Weaned Todd
Joined: August 2005
Posts: 36
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Post by linzie on Sept 22, 2005 6:06:25 GMT -7
I'm not entirely sure what is going on with Wilber but i think hes starting to pluck  Last night, as normal we bought Wilber out of the cage to spend time with us, he was fine, chattering, and playing as he normally does. After a while he moved to his usual 'comfy place - the arm of the sofa - and started to preen, again nothing abnormal, until he got the the small area at the base of his neck / top of breast bone, where he seemed to be preening more vigorously. On pretending to watch the TV and having a sneaky look at what he was doing, it was clear that he was picking an individual feather in his beak, pulling so that it was visible to see his skin stretch with the tension, and then of course - pop - the feather was plucked out. After seeing this one feather being removed, i tried not to over-react, so not to draw attention to what he had just done and so hopefully avoid any association behavior with it (I pluck a feather and mummy comes running kind of thing), but tried to distract him with a toy and talking to him. Unfortunately this failed after a few minutes, and was followed by a further 10 or so feathers. He is presently going through a moult so there have been a few feathers around over the past few days, but he has definitely not plucked before last night, because we had seen him preen earlier that day, and on previous days, and there was no sign of plucking actions. The area on which he was concentrating this on, is far from bald, and it is not noticeable that there are any feathers missing, and there is still plenty of fluffy 'undercoat' left (we never saw him pull any of that). Ive looked closely at the area and there are quite a number of new feathers coming through too.  Obviously his health and wellbeing are of highest importance to me, but do you think it is worth waiting a day or two to see if this continues before I take him to the vets to rule out things such as skin problems etc? - I'm thinking that that additional "trauma" may make things worse at this stage, and in the meantime purchase some "bitter beak" type spray? Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, eg, no strange visitors, new diet, or shocks of any kind, the only different thing that has occurred is that recently we have used the central heating for the house, for pretty much the first time this year - our heating system is new, and the house gets hot pretty darn quick - I'm wondering if that may be a factor.  - I'm wondering if besides the bitter beak, if a skin soothing spray would be better - or is it a case of experimenting and seeing what works best for Wilber. I know I'm perhaps over reacting, as this only happened last night, so I should probably assess the "incident" further, but I cant help worrying  |
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Post by Jane on Sept 22, 2005 7:03:40 GMT -7
It might be a combination of the moulting, and the heating making the air a bit dry. Moulting is irritating for them anyway so it might be worth spraying him either with aloe vera and water or one of the sprays such as Canopy Molt Ease which has aloe vera in it.
Jane
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- I'm wondering if besides the bitter beak, if a skin soothing spray would be better - or is it a case of experimenting and seeing what works best for Wilber. 