Here's the thing that you're forgetting about her behavior, and it most-likely has nothing at all to do with you not being home all day long, she'd still be plucking/barbering (those first photos of her showed a TON of barbering of the ends of her feathers everywhere, it's very evident on the feathers going around the back of her neck, on her legs, and around her vent area)...She most-likely started plucking/barbering due to a real, physical health issue, such as a bacterial or fungal infection that has long since gone away, or due to boredom simply because she didn't understand what toys were for (this is due to her breeder not putting toys inside of her Weaning-Cage when she was first moved from the Brooder to the Weaning-Cage, and is quite a common problem, if they aren't given toys/foraging activities to do in their Weaning-Cage or at any time while with their breeder, when they go to their new home and they have toys and foraging activities they don't have a clue what they're for, which causes boredom), or even just due to her first molting being exceptionally bad, whatever the original cause was it started her first barbering and then progressed to actual "plucking"...And then the original cause was cured/removed/ended, but she kept on barbering and plucking...
***And the reason she keeps doing it is because she is literally addicted to plucking. It's very common (unfortunately), and I'd bet it happens in at least 70% of all captive/pet parrots who start plucking due to an original health-issue that caused itchiness or due to their first molt being very bad. Every time a bird pulls a feather out of themselves it releases the exact same neurotransmitters in the brain that are released when a person takes an opiate pain-killer or uses another drug such as cocaine, meth, etc., or uses nicotine, etc. And if they keep doing it because they like it, some of them get hooked, some don't. It's exactly the same scenario as to why someone who smokes keeps smoking even though they know it's killing them, because they want those endorphins/neurotransmitters to be released and to produce that feeling again...So once the physical health issue is remedied, the plucking continues...
And here's the thing about a bird who is plucking due to being addicted to plucking and not because there is a physical health problem any longer...They actually do stop at times, sometimes for quite a while, sometimes for only a day, a week, a month, etc., and then they very much to in-fact "relapse", usually because they again have an itch due to a new molt (tis the season right now for molting, my house looks like a feather-pillow factory was blown-up right now), and the minute they again pluck out a feather they again feel that rush of endorphins and then BAM!!!, they are suddenly full-on plucking again. And this time it might only last for a few days, a few weeks, etc. Or it might continue on again for a long period of time...But the point is that it is due to a very real addiction to the act of plucking itself. And just like someone who is a drug addict and who has been "clean" for a long time and who is in a car accident or has to have surgery and is given opiate pain-meds in the hospital or by a doctor for a legitimate reason, just taking one of those pain pills starts them actively using again...Just like every molting-season the birds who are past pluckers may or may not get through their molt without starting to pluck themselves again...But that first "itch" from a new molt followed by just one little "pluck" can start things in-motion again...
And this is why I asked about your Vet being a CAV or an Avian Specialist Vet (as already mentioned, a DVM just means "Doctor of Veterinary Medicine", or that they graduated from Vet School, and being a member of the Association of Avian Veterinarians doesn't mean anything either, that's just something they pay a yearly fee to be a member of; the problem in the US is that "Exotics" Vets are nothing more than General Vets, or Vets who only see/treat dogs and cats, but they are willing to see pretty much ANY type of pet/animal...That's all it means in the US, you can call yourself an "Exotics" Vet if you want to, but all it means here is that you graduated from Vet School and you are willing to see all types of animals, but you have no extra education or training in any specific animal)...And when you're dealing with a parrot who has a Behavioral-Health problem such as Feather-Destructive Disorders, you need an Avian Vet Specialist, or at the very least an Exotics Vet who has a lot of experience treating Avian Behavioral Diseases...
The treatment that I've had the most success with as far as treating a bird who has a Feather-Destructive Behavior and who seems to have it come back during molting-season, meaning that there are distinct "Triggers" that cause them to relapse and start plucking/barbering themselves again, is to put them on an anti-anxiety drug while they are actively-plucking, and over the span of 2-3 months tapering them down in the dose until they are tapered-off of it completely...And then the next year during the same time period that they started exhibiting the behavior the year prior (right before molting season starts), we put them back on the anti-anxiety drug automatically, but a much lower dose than what we start them on when they are actively-plucking...So basically we just put them on a very low-dose of the anti-anxiety medication BEFORE they start molting again and BEFORE the plucking starts again, and just keep them on a very low, daily dose of the medication until their molt is done, and then taper them off of that low dose over a couple of weeks, and that usually works to prevent the plucking from ever starting up again...I 've had the most success with putting the bird on Haldol; some people choose Valium, but I don't like using Valium only because #1 it's very addictive itself, and even more so #2 it makes them sleepy and lethargic, even at low doses...The Haldol doesn't really seem to effect them much at all except to keep them from plucking...
