Lildee ... if you know the problem to be behavioural due to imitation, parent to chick, and more to the point hereditary, then why are you even breeding the pair?

It is the breeders responsibility to make sure future offspring are as faultless as can be produced. The birds have no choice, it's nature to copulate, to rear young. An owner on the other hand has a choice and should make the wisest choice according to the knowledge they have to work with. Possibly this should be the last generation if it is as you say hereditary.

Ellie in the first pix looked exactly like Jasmine and there are some nice feathers showing.. what a pity she continues to chew. Does she allow you to preen her as I see some good shafts on her crest. I sure hope in time she'll improve but habits are hard to break....

 

 

 

She actually looks 100% better than the photo from May. 

 

On yes we preen each other and we also give scritches to each other!  Seriously she will take her little foot and rub my head/hair!!

Also,

JMO and I know others her do this, but I am against breeding.  There are so many homeless parrots out there that need good homes.  Why add more!  Please reconsider breeding your too's!

Gave up breeding a while ago and now only have my pets... My breeder Too's were also spoiled and more pet quality than some of the pets I have known...

It's a two way street.... owners and breeders both sharing the responsibility in the care and welfare of the birds.

Breeders who see nothing but dollar signs and owners who aren’t adequately educated in that a bird is closer to the wild than domesticated. And they become disillusioned that this “pet�?isn’t acting as what their minds perceive as normal behaviour. Normal being human behaviour and actions�?not that of wild birds who instinctively have one goal to survive.

Lildee, I have used almost every product I have heard of, trying to stop my Diana ekkie's plucking. She is naked and has been for years. Nothing helps her. Hers began when she was very young and had zinc poisoning, then as she was recovering she got Pacheco's virus. For two years she was very ill. She began picking early on and continued, getting worse with every hormone season. Now she shreds her wings and tail, too, in addition to not having a single body feather.

 

Some birds may do OK with anti picking aids but I have not personally known any who did.

We even tried the Bach Flower Remedy and other oral remedies.

Annie

Unfortunately even when they seem to be doing well with their feather destroying many start all over again.  I've seen that with my bird and have tried to follow a few on the internet that say their bird stopped doing it.  You will hear many say things are improving because of a certain thing they changed and then if you follow the bird over time they may revert back. 

 

In my case my bird started after a fall at 7mths of age.  Instead of fixing the feather he chewed it off.  In 4 days everything was off. After many tests we concluded it was behavioral.  He takes feathers off if he doesn't get to go where he wants to.  If you are too slow with food.  If he wants something and can't fly to it.  And if he is jealous.  Leaving him flighted kept him from destroying and got him feathered pretty good.  But since he is never caged that became dangerous. So he was trimmed. If we can get his flight feathers all in and he doesn't destroy them I might try letting him keep them again instead of trimming. 

 

My bird was tested, gets a good diet, is well taken care of, tons of toys, not afraid of much, loves almost everyone but still does it.  My biggest hurdle was just accepting it and not worrying about it.  Once that was accomplished life is normal except he looks different.  I try to feed him faster, hide eating if he can't have it, watch signs for jealousy (that is when he tooks wings off bad) and watch for small signs.  Every morning I would see feathers.  Til I realized he did it when he was first put in cage at night. So instead of putting him right in I let him sit with me right before bedtime and when I seen he was relaxed put him in.  Also just the way he was covered bothered him too.  Fixed those two things and he quit doing the nighttime barbering.

 

He is not afraid of things but even went that route to see if anything in the house was bothering him.  Moved alot of things and no change.  Tried a drug on him this spring and no results so took him off.  Tried the aloe spray and he wanted the feathers off that were sprayed. Plain water actually calms him down. He just sits quietyly after a bath.   I do that if I am going to leave and cage him.  That made a difference there for him. Also TV on.

 

So I would say that if it isn't medical that it could be any of a ton of different things that trigger it. Finding all of them is the problem. Now if a bird came from a bad situation a good situation might be all it needs.  But many birds have been in great situations and still do it.

 

Indy

I forgot to mention that they even did a study on where birds were placed in a room and found out that made a difference.  Placement to a door way did something to ones that were prone to feather plucking.   Have to find that study. Maybe Annie knows about it.  Annie?

 

Indy

I have belonged to the feather picking group since Nat opened it up maybe nine odd years ago.

We've come to the conclusion that there are so many different reasons as there are owners and birds...

The only thing we all agree on is that there doesn't seem to be this trait in the wild 'nor normally with wild caughts... unless diseased and then still incureable. PFBD.

There have been diets, sprays, environment changes made, rehome changes made and still they pick or barber...

But we try and keep on trying and whoever finds the solution will be a millionaire.

 

Repost with resized pictures so the page isn't so wide:

 

From: mandymmr

Sent: 26/09/2008 4:41 AM

"Mandy how old is your U2 and how long have you had her? I saw where in another thread you mentioned she was improving... "   When I got Ellie she was pretty bad.  She also ruins all the shafts in her wings and tail, not to mention bare belly.  Most of the follicles we thought were ruined, but this late winter early srping I noticed she was getting new one...and they were pretty long!     As of 2 months ago I also noticed that there were alot of feather's on her wings that she was letting grow out without ruining them, along with about 4 feather's on her tail that were almost to normal length (she never had a tail pretty much till then).  I will re attach the photo incase you didn't see.    Anyways I have had her for about 1 1/2 years.  She has been improving great.  I also know for a fact if you make the ALOE Juice mild mix there is no build up and actually it is very good for their skin and TO EAT!!!  Read this link!  My Vet also recomended it highly! http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww56e.htm Now I don't feed it to mine, (they hate any food that is green).     Plucking can stem from many avenues!  I have done much recsearch on plucking so I feel that I know quite a bit about it along with many trial and errors.  Plucking can be behavioral  (OCD, unhappy, stress, bordome, etc).  It can also stem from a health issue internal or external.  My U2 plucked and mutilated for over 9 years straight.  Her first owner (owned her for 8 years) used to beat her with shoes and sticks because she was loud.  There were no toys for her to play with and obviously not andy human interaction.    Now she has ton's of toys to play with.  Ton's of paper to shred.  Lots of interaction with me, she walks around and eats a a part of the flock.  Now s my vet said  she has done it for so many years she may never stop...but she could get better.    The Aloe Juice really helps and I use it on all my birds.  I use 1/4 part aloe juice to 3/4 part water daily.  Then they also get a good good drenching shower 2 times a week.  I also thought one day that since she loves to chew and rip the shafts of her feathers (like some of us bite our nails) that I could find an alternative.  So when I was at wal mart oe day in the craft section I bought a bag of feathers.  They had colored one's and all white.  Only 97 cents!  I bought both thinking that since she is white she would like those better...NOPE she likes the colored one's better.  So every day before I got to work I take half a handful and put them in her basket in her cage so she can chew those all day instead of ehrselfand you know what....IT WORKED!!!!   This is Ellie when I first got her!       This is Ellie now:   Her wings still are far from perfect, but they are much better.  This was taken back in May.  They are even better now!!!  And look at that long tail feather!  We never had that before.

I don't recall seeing the study you mentioned, Indy.

 

I'd like to see if if you can find it.

 

Diana's plucking began with illness but became much worse when I put her in the birdroom. She had lived in the living room with us. Hubby began to stay up later and later til she was getting no quiet dark sleep.

Noisy TV and his coughing kept her up til 3 and 4 a.m. She does get 12 hours quiet dark time now but plucks in the nighttime. Never plucks in the daytime.

Annie

I always put a cover over Allie but left part of the back and sometimes even the front so she could get light coming through.  Nothing bothered her.  But I noticed Bubba likes it completely black.  I almost wrap his cage like a present. I can see him looking that the bottom of the black sheet is tightly pulled around it.  It can't be just hanging. I leave a very tiny peep hole up front where the ends meet. 

 

It was weird to find out that this helped him alot.  I never thought of it till I noticed him really watching the edges of the sheet.

 

It was in Birdtalk a few yrs ago I think.  I save them all so got to find time to look through them. 

 

Indy

 

 Ah HAH! I called around to various suppliers and vets, breeders, this group, etc. and have done quite a lot of researching about this. Thank God I didnt have to spend all that money on even more products that will sit in my cupboard or fridge and never get used (like the vita drops that I cant use because of ecoli, etc).

Here is what I have come up with from Vets: The local avian vets office said that it wont necessarily hurt them to have the products on them, but the safety concern is that the picking parent (as in my case) or a plucking mate can really start trying to get the offensive stuff off f the 'pluckee'. Especially in parents over grooming the chicks, this can lead to serious injury when the hen or cock try to "bite" it off of a chicks skin. Also, a good friend who has had everything from chickens to wild recovering hawks and owls found that the other chicks actually picked a chick to death once trying to get the red spot (iodine) off of its sib.

With risks like that, I think I will just continue trying to stop it through distracting Theo and other behavioral stuff like rewarding not doing it.

Lildee, have you ever handfed babies? If you know how, so that you won't aspirate them, it may be time to take them away from the abusive mama bird.

 

Your parent birds may start to lay again immediately so you may have to separate them so the hen can have a recovery period.

 

Many breeders have over enthuiastic parent birds who abuse the babies and they remove the babies early to be handfed.

It's very time consuming but wouldn't be as bad now with your babies being older.

Annie

handfeeding isnt an option for me as I cant take them everywhere I go right now. I am scheduled for surgery and they wont let me have them in the hospital....I checked, lol