Bongo's plucking.

[Cliffordsmom]

Hey all, long time no post! Hope everyone is well!
Bongo started over preening about 3 weeks ago. I took her to the vet and all her tests came back and she is as healthy as can be. But she has gone from over preening to full fledge plucking. As you can see she has hardly any feathers left. I have her on pluck no more. She hates baths and I think she is starting to hate me for bathing her. I'm worried because I am moving next week and I don't wat to stress her anymore.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to help her overcome this problem. My poor girl (

 

[Parro]

Oh! I'm sorry to hear that,listen, I will tell you everything I know to help you, does bongo's cage have any chewable and safe toys to chew and play with? If not, bongo will start chewing and plucking out his feathers. You need to give him plenty of toys to chew on, then he will forget to pluck out his feathers. I hope my post helped, good luck.

 

[Cliffordsmom]

She's got PLENTY of toys. Not just in her cage but all around the house. We have playtime together everyday where she learns tricks and new words. She even plays with the dogs. I couldn't possibly imagine that she is bored.

 

[lotosha]

Oh, poor baby and poor you. Looks like she has everything she needs, so I don't know how to help you. Wish she will stop plucking!!!

 

[MonicaMc]

She has toys, but does she have foraging toys?


My real question though... has she been tested for any skin infections?

 

[Molcan2]

Well what we did with Rome recently, has worked so far. Rome had a collar, the bubble type, put on and at the same type she was put on some psych meds. She wore her collar for almost six months, we had to add extra padding onto the collar to make it bigger. We waited for all of her feathers to come back in (she just went through a big molt). Then we started to decrease the size of her collar, about two weeks ago we took her collar off completely. Next week we plan on starting to wean her off of her psych meds. She, crossing my fingers, hasn't touched a feather so far. The collar I think gives time to fix the environment all the while temporarily breaking the habit. BIG emphasis on the word temporary.

If you dont fix what caused the feather plucking in the first place, then I don't think using this technique will be successful. If I remember right, Bongo is a really young bird right? I feel really strongly that you need to have some allergy panels done by a specialty clinic or the state university. For such a young bird to be doing this, tells me that it is not from 'emotional' trauma but more a response to something else. The collar will give you enough time to sort things out and get to the bottom of the cause. If you don't stop the plucking soon then, not only are you creating a habit, but worse: If the feather follicle shaft becomes too damage then the feather will never grow back. Sometimes it takes years of mutilation to cause that type of damage and sometimes it happens after just a few plucks. Thats why we decided to go with the collar for Rome.

So far its working for us but its not a sure fire fix and it has taken six months to get as far as we have come. Good luck with Bongo, I really feel that he needs to go to another specialist.