Plucked Max

Here is a picture of Max after last week's feather destruction incident. She bit the feathers off at the end of the shaft, which frequently is a result of low humidity. Although he denies it, I have a feeling that Thomas was not maintaining the humidifier as he should have been.I have not found any more feathers at the bottom of her cage since I've been home. It doesn't really matter, as feathers do not make the bird, but it's a little frustrating since she'd most likely still be fully feathered if I hadn't had to go on a business trip.

Back home

Finally, I am home. Or at least near home, as I am actually at work as I type this. I was starting to wonder if this would ever happen! This morning's flight was delayed as well, adding to my suspicion that I may just have to acquiesce and move to Boston since things were conspiring to keep me there.

My last days in Boston were uneventful. I did make it over to the MFA and got to see the new Art of the Americas wing that was still under construction during our visit last April.

I stopped at home earlier today just for a few minutes to quickly shower and head to work. Basil was especially happy to see me, which was a surprise. He went into his repertoire "Hello Basil Bird! Hello Basil! I got your foot!" while pinning his eyes and fanning his tail. I can't wait to see how excited he gets when he sees his owner again!

Unfortunately while I was gone, Max plucked out a good portion of her chest feathers. I haven't yet had the chance to talk to Thomas -- did he forget to run the humidifier, or did she really pluck because I was gone (she doesn't pluck when we both are gone or when just Thomas is, so that would be strange.) I'll post pictures this weekend.

The greys were very happy to see me, as were the caiques. However, the caiques went into overload -- they were a little too happy -- and showed me signs they were going to bite if I tried to handle them (this is normal when I return from a trip) -- they'll calm down in a few days. Even Brian was chirping and begging to come out -- another surprise since he's only known me a few weeks. Probably this had more to do with wanting to come out of his cage than wanting to be with me! Thomas did tell me that Brian has been spending most of the evening on Thomas's shoulder, so I'm sure he's loving that freedom after being locked up for so long.

I suspect Rocky was disappointed to have his dream interrupted with reality by my return. He screamed the entire time I was home this morning. Earlier in the week, when Thomas would hold the phone up to him so I could talk to him, he attempted to attack the phone. This is in contrast to when Thomas is on the phone: Rocky gets so excited, sometimes blushes, and says, "Hi Rock!" This is also in contrast to Stella who bent her head and tried to make the phone give her head pets when she heard my voice.

I am so glad to be back! I had asked Thomas to take lots of pictures so I'd know what really went on when I was gone, but he didn't take any! Things will be back to normal on the blog soon with me in charge of the camera again.

I hope everyone has a good weekend! We have our last 20+ miler before our marathon next month; we're planning on doing that tomorrow morning. This will be Thomas's first marathon since 2001. I'm also volunteering at a race Sunday, which will be cold since I don't get to move around like the runners do. Other than that, I'm hoping to spend a lot of time at home with the parrots.

Stella's sore

Saturday morning, Stella had a night fright. Or would it be more of a morning fright since it was about 5 minutes before I was about to get the parrots up? She flailed around her cage, and though she was fine when I got her out, she opened up a small wound on her chest, which you will see in the pictures in subsequent posts.Since she used to mutilate her chest, I am really hoping that this does not trigger another round of mutilation, especially since Thomas isn't around. She loves him, and the stress of his absence could rear its ugly head, resulting in mutilation.

So far, it's been a little over two days, and she's left the wound alone. Fingers crossed.

Feather destruction question

I received a question in the comments on this post from Becky W., which I will reprint here:

I love reading about Steve and his progress. Your tips of grey behavior are very helpful to me. I was wondering if could pose a question here, as I have seen other people do.We have a sweet CAG that we adopted about 1.5 years ago. She is about 8 years old, and there was no suspected abuse from the home she came from. She was quite mutilated when we got her---picked her tail completely off, and one wing had no long feathers left on it. She has grown to be very affectionate with us, and is the sweetest creature I've ever encountered. We adore her so much. She loves my husband, and will run over to him to get his affection any chance she can. I thought the new home would help her feather destruction, but it has not. She has plenty of toys to chew and destroy, which she does every day. However, if we are home and not giving her our undivided attention, she picks herself, chewing off more feathers. This happens more when my husband his home, and she seems calmer when it is just me. But, if he is walking about the house, just getting home from work, just getting up out of bed to head out the door to work, etc...she will hang upside down from the top of her cage, contort her body so that she can reach a feather to chew on, and pull part of it out. The only way we have found to stop this is to pick her up and give her attention. We just got back from vacation, and I was worried our absence would have made her feather chewing worse. But, I was shocked when we got home, and she had two large tail feathers fully grown in, and a few feathers on both wings that have started to open and grow. We have been home for two days, one of the tail feathers is gone, and she is continuing to chew on her wing. I feel terrible that it seems our presence is making his problem worse. Do you have any advice? Should we not pick her up when she starts to do this? It is so hard for me to watch, but I realize that I'm probably re-enforcing her behavior by giving her attention. Thanks for any input you may have, and thanks for a great blog.

Hi Becky, and thanks for the question! I am a bit unclear if she is actually mutilating (i.e. causing to bleed) herself or if it's just feather destruction. It kind of sounds like the latter, though it really doesn't matter as my advice would be the same.

First, I'd recommend that she go to the avian vet for a full check to make sure that there isn't a physical reason for her mutilation. I've seen birds with a yeast infection, for example, which causes them to pick their feathers in an attempt to relieve the itching. Once treated, the feather destruction clears up.

However, given the fact that she allowed her feathers to grow in while you were on vacation makes me suspect that this might be behavioral.

Parrots are extremely empathetic and in my (probably biased) opinion, greys seem to be more in tune with their owners' emotions than other parrots. It is really important that you try to get to a point where you don't care if she feather destructs. Believe me, I know this is hard to do!

I believe that some parrots are less able to handle captivity than other parrots. I have seen parrots come out of horribly neglectful and abusive homes in perfect feather, and I have seen parrots come out of very loving homes who feather destruct. Her feathers (or lack thereof) are not a reflection on you as a bird owner. They are not even necessarily a commentary on her happiness. Stella, my CAG, plucks, and she is one of the happiest captive parrots I've seen!

You are exactly right in that the solution that you found to stop her from plucking (pick her up when she starts to destruct) is making the problem worse. If she wants attention, all she has to do is pull out some feathers and she gets what she wants!

The problem is that now that this has been reinforced (plucking = attention), it will take some work and willpower on your part to break the cycle. It may get worse before it gets better. Since plucking = attention, when you first start to ignore the plucking, she may escalate, plucking even more ("this has always worked in the past -- maybe if I pull out more feathers, it will work again! I just have to pull out more so they notice!") You really need to not react, even if it gets worse, or the problem will just get even worse, as you will have raised the bar for attention-getting: now she knows she needs to pull more feathers to get attention.

The trick is that not only do you want to teach her that plucking no longer equals attention; you want to give her a tool, a communication method, that she can use when she does want attention, that she can learn to use instead of plucking to get what she wants.

Since every bird is an individual, you may have to try different things before finding a solution that works for your family. I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head; I hope this makes some sense, but please let me know if it doesn't!

1. Is there any sort of pattern to her plucking? It may help to keep a journal. You mention that it frequently seems to happen when your husband is around but not paying attention to her. Try to figure out if there are situations that set her off, or if she does something before she plucks.

a. If you can figure out situations, you can rearrange things to not have those situations occur. For example, if she starts plucking 5 minutes after your husband comes home, perhaps the first thing he does upon arriving home is get her out of her cage, smother her with 3 minutes of attention, and give her a cashew to eat while he changes out of his work clothes. Try to figure out ways to distract her and keep her busy by being proactive. Maybe he needs to tell her something before he leaves ("I'll be back!") so that she doesn't think she's abandoned. Or, if he's going into another room for a quick errand, maybe he takes her with him.

b. If she does something most of the time before she plucks, you can try to be proactive and give her the attention then -- before it escalates to plucking. In this post, I talk about how we did that with Rocky and screaming. For example, if your grey frequently plucks after she does a loop around the top of her cage, when you see her doing the loop, run over and give her attention then -- before she plucks. She will learn that doing a loop gets her attention but plucking no longer does.

2. When Max, my TAG, started plucking, I did a lot of research and did as much as I could to enrich her environment. My thoughts were two-fold: I wanted to make Max's environment as conducive as I could to her keeping her feathers and I wanted to assuage my guilt -- if I were doing everything I could to keep her happy and she still plucked, I wouldn't feel guilty and pass my feelings off on her. For example:

a. What kind of diet does she have? I'm a big fan of Harrison's High Potency for greys, supplemented with small amounts of a high-quality seed mix and fresh vegetables for their main diet.

b. What kind of exercise does she get? In the wild, parrots get tons of exercise flying around. In captivity, far too many birds are far too sedentary, which leads to physical health and behavioral problems. They wind up with too much energy that they channel into screaming, aggression, or self-destruction. Can you get her panting and flapping several times a day? Maybe right before when she typically feather destructs, as she may then be too tired out to pluck.

c. What kind of bathing does she like, and how frequently? Frequent baths can help with feather regrowth. Also, maybe right before she typically feather destructs (like your husband could bathe her before he leaves for work) as then she can preen her feathers instead of pluck them.

d. What kind of mental stimulation does she have? You mention toy destruction -- which is fantastic! Does she have to work for any of her food? As you probably know if you've read this blog, I'm a big fan of making them forage for food, and also of clicker training.

e. Does she have a place where she can go in her cage to feel safe and not be on display? They are prey animals, and some like to hide behind a large toy. Not having a safe place can make them feel exposed and vulnerable, leading to plucking.

Feather destruction is a very complex thing. There are no easy answers. We've had Stella for over two years. She flies, has a stimulating environment, good diet, loves us both, appears to be happy...and she still plucks. We've gotten to the point where we truly don't care. You say that your grey is very sweet and affectionate -- congratulations! Focus on her inner beauty. Maximize her environment and provide her the best captive life you can, but don't get too hung up on outer appearances (especially if it's just plucking and there are no open wounds -- those can be a bit more serious as they can lead to infection.)

Greys feed off of our emotions. They are amazing flock animals and pick up on body language that is so subtle we don't even realize the signals we're giving them. If you're upset about her plucking, she knows you're upset. She might not know why you're upset, but you are. You're in her flock, so she instinctively is upset. One way she manifests this emotion is by plucking -- turning this into a vicious cycle, as you just get more upset by this, so she plucks more, etc.

Believe me, I know how hard it is to get over this. I tend to be a perfectionist and felt like a major failure when Max started plucking. I obsessed about it for weeks. But my worrying was only making things worse.

You guys sound like great owners, and she sounds like an amazing grey. Enjoy her!

More Steve

I think I might be swinging the pendulum toward Steve-overload on this blog since I was frustrated with myself for not showing more of Stella's first weeks/months with us. But he is just so adorable, I can't stop myself!He loves his vegetables!
I got a quick look under his wings at his mutilation sites yesterday. He hadn't been out of his cage for about a week or so, but flew out yesterday when Thomas scared him (accidentally, of course). Steve was on his boing, and Thomas was clunking around, even though I had warned him to be careful. Before I realized what was happening, Steve flew out of his cage and landed on the floor.

There is still wet blood under both wings, but significantly less than when we first got him. Of course I have no measurements and am going based solely on my memory (and Thomas's memory), but under his right wing was maybe 25% less mutilation and under his left wing maybe 67% less mutilation. There's still a significant amount, but it's progress! It's also been a few days since I've seen any plucked feathers in the bottom of his cage.

I'm certainly not saying he's cured, by any means. Feather destruction and mutilation are very complex. Stella still hasn't regrown all of her feathers, and she's been with us over two years. It took me a long time to get there mentally, but plucking doesn't really bother me, as long as I know I'm giving the bird the best captive environment I can. Some birds handle captivity better than others. Mutilation, on the other hand, is a different story, as I worry about infection and the pain the bird must be going through.

Hopefully soon I will have an update that Steve is choosing to come out and be a part of our family!

Observe your bird!

I was up at the rescue yesterday (Long story, but the power went out so we were preparing to send the parrots into volunteers' homes until the power was restored. I was going to get about 6 greys, a severe macaw, and a bearded dragon. Can you imagine all of the beeping and phone ringing that would have been going on at my place? Power was restored just as I was about to put the parrots in their carriers, so they didn't have their routine disturbed.) where I heard the story of one of the latest birds to be surrendered.

A lady was surrendering her grey because he had become very mean and bitey several months ago and she didn't want to deal with him anymore. Of course she hadn't ever taken him to a vet, but said he appeared to be in general good health.

When he got back to the rescue, volunteers were performing his intake and were shocked to see that under his wings, it looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to him. Obviously this isn't what happened -- he'd mutilated himself -- and his owner never noticed!

Had she taken him to the vet when his behavior changed (from a handleable bird to one who refused to come out of her cage) the mutilation could have been caught early, and he could have been spared months of pain.

Two of my parrots are former mutilators; Calypso:
and Stella:
Because the mutilation was caught early (they each mutilated for less than 3 days), we haven't had a recurrence. It's been 4 1/2 years for Calypso and 1 1/2 years for Stella.

Based on my experiences at the rescue, the longer a parrot has been mutilating, the harder it is to stop.

I know that the people who read me regularly know this, but hopefully this information could be helpful to someone stumbling upon this. Know your parrot. Know what's normal for him or her. If their behavior suddenly changes, it's probably time for a vet appointment to rule out anything physical.

Look at them physically to see any changes -- tumors, plucking, mutilation, etc. Rocky has a tumor, and Thomas examines this on at least a weekly basis -- any changes would send us to the vet. It's easier to examine some birds than others, but work with them to make this a fun experience. With the greys, we've taught them to lift their wings so we can look under, as they do not appreciate us touching their wings. Rocky, Daphne, and the caiques, on the other hand, love being handled, so we are able to do this physically.

If you work with your bird to allow handling, this also makes vet visits much more pleasant, and less stressful for the parrot.

Since parrots are prey animals, they are very adept at hiding any illnesses. It's our job, as their caretakers, to observe them carefully, notice any changes, and get them the treatment they need.

Plucking thoughts

This question was in my comments from yesterday, so I thought I would bring it out to a main blog post so that my response wasn't buried in the comments.

Do you have any suggestions on preventing birds from plucking? My mother-in-law
has a cockatiel that recently began plucking her feathers again. (Our theory is
that she feels neglected--my sister-in-law just had a baby who is getting all
the attention.) I know you have had birds with similar problems in the past, and
I was wondering how you helped them.Thanks for the help.

Plucking is something that is so complex and frustrating! The first thing I would recommend, especially with a cockatiel, is a vet workup to eliminate any physical causes. Cockatiels rarely pluck for behavioral reasons. The rescue where I volunteer gets about 100 cockatiels surrendered to us every year, which would mean I've seen about 500 cockatiels in the 5 years I've been volunteering. I've seen maybe 5 plucked tiels, and every single one of them has had a health issue (bacterial infection, ingrown feather, etc.). Once the medical issue was cleared up, the tiels regrew their feathers.
This tiel's plucking and mutilation was caused by an ingrown feather. Once the vet took care of that, he was able to regrow all of his feathers.


Of course that's not to say that your mother-in-law's plucking tiel couldn't be behavioral! Just because it's rare doesn't mean that it NEVER happens! Once any medical issues are ruled out, I'd start working on optimizing her environment, which is a good thing to try to do, even if the bird isn't plucking!

One thing that may help, especially if you think it relates to reduced attention is if your mother-in-law started clicker training her cockatiel. You might be thinking, "where will she find the time for that?" but once you get into a routine, it takes less than 5 minutes per day per bird, and the results you see are worth it! The attention you give your bird during this time is high quality, and it helps your bird keep her mind active. I'd recommend joining the Bird-Click yahoo group (it's free). You can learn how to do this by reading their files, and experts are there to answer your questions. The moderator has several tiels that she clicker trains.

Other things to consider include diet, air quality, humidity, number and types of toys, bathing frequency, etc.

Another thing she might consider doing, if the decrease in attention will be on more or less a constant basis now that the grandchild is in the picture, is get her cockatiel a friend (I'd recommend another female so that there's no accidental breeding). There are so many unwanted cockatiels in shelters, and she could probably find one close to her on petfinder. Of course there are some drawbacks to this idea -- namely her current cockatiel may become less tame to her or they may never get along well enough to cage them together so she has two cages now -- so it's something to really consider before bringing another one home.

The last thing I want to say is that plucking isn't the end of the world. I used to think that it was; especially before I had pluckers, and during the first few months of their plucking. After all, isn't it inconceivable that a well cared-for and happy bird would pluck? Not at all! These guys are wild animals and, despite our best efforts, we can't replicate the wild for them. Some just can't handle captivity well. I don't recommend collars for pluckers -- only in certain cases for mutilators -- and not long term.

Best of luck to your mother-in-law and her cockatiel!