Conure biting off his own feathers.

[Catastrophycat]

So, it started about 10 days ago, perfectly healthy looking feathers started looking rough a bit too fast. In a couple days they looked chopped up and I was wondering what was going on when around day 5 I finally caught him preening his shoulders/wings as far as he can reach and actually biting the ends of his feathers. I'm at a loss, I don't know how to help my baby. I've read that it could be stress, but nothing major happened, in fact nothing changed from the ordinary day to day, just that the weather got hotter and we've had a couple of thunderstorms this past week. I have tried distracting him and spending more time with him, as much as my job allows (I work from home so we hang out plenty but I do need to get work done too), he had a nice bath and I'm offering it daily. Not sure what else I could do to relieve his stress. Adding a picture of how he looks now.. any advice welcome.

 

[clark_conure]

When I read the title I was like oh it's molting time, but wow the picture um, thats new to me. Theres a lot of black stripes and I read somewhere that might be a vitamin thing. I'd wait for one our vet members...they really know this kind of stuff.

 

[Catastrophycat]

When I read the title I was like oh it's molting time, but wow the picture um, thats new to me. Theres a lot of black stripes and I read somewhere that might be a vitamin thing. I'd wait for one our vet members...they really know this kind of stuff.

I was thinking so too. Thing is I saw him biting, like physically biting the end and crunching. Then later I guess the ends turned black; but the rest of his feathers where he can't reach look normal to me.

 

[Catastrophycat]

For the record: the quality isn't great bcause it's from a video but this was May 6th and he looks great compared to now.

 

[MerlinLouRic]

Merlin started the same behavior and after a visit to the vet we learned that he had a crop infection. Go to your vet ASAP.