- Mar 27, 2012
- 1,023
- Media
- 8
- 2
- Parrots
- Red Front Macaw, Elvis, 10,male RIP
Red Front Macaw, Erin, 1.5,female
Goffin Cockatoo, Blossom 2,female Rehomed
Blue & Gold Macaw, Oscar, Male, 21 years old, Rehomed
American Bulldog Mix,
Okay, so as everyone knows Erin has an over preening issue. We soaked it up to a corn allergy, but even with no corn in the last 4 months or so she still shreds her feathers. We took her to the vet finally last month after her little fiasco and bloodwork shows she is as healthy as can be.
The vet said it may be hormones, so he gave her a hormone killer. It helped... as much as the corn did. It cut down a bit, but is still there. I see her preen still, but only 1-2 minutes at a time now, so it seems cut down, but she still has a lot of fluffy feathers showing on her wings, chest, and legs.
This was last week to show you her feathers on the topside of her wings:
Mara Solt Wentz's Photos | Facebook
She has had an avian light above her stand for the past month now, we have her on rice pellets still (completely allergy free diet), she gets a bag of pistachios to eat weekly, and pine nuts for treats. She doesnt care for human food still (except any cookie batter, choc. milk, soda, ice cream, chef boyardee's noodles and ground beef, juice and snickerdoodles- aka she doesnt eat human food).
She flies around our room and house freely now. She showers weekly. We use a parrot shampoo monthly that has finally gotten that nasty bitter deterrent off her feathers (so we're done using it now). And she has begun to splash about in her water bowl. She's also being more vocal (ugh). She is also finally destroying all her toysa dn swinging upside down, etc, like a normal bird. She's acting more like my darling Elvis was- except she's yelling more, but the preening still continues.
Any suggestions? And yes we ignore the screaming, but I admit with these pregnancy hormones raging I don't know how much longer I can ignore it and not yell back (it's seeming more and more logical each time she screams -_-). When she isn't screaming I do play with her and pet her, but sometimes she just flies back to her stand and continues to scream. She seems to scream more while she is preening.
The vet said it may be hormones, so he gave her a hormone killer. It helped... as much as the corn did. It cut down a bit, but is still there. I see her preen still, but only 1-2 minutes at a time now, so it seems cut down, but she still has a lot of fluffy feathers showing on her wings, chest, and legs.
This was last week to show you her feathers on the topside of her wings:
Mara Solt Wentz's Photos | Facebook
She has had an avian light above her stand for the past month now, we have her on rice pellets still (completely allergy free diet), she gets a bag of pistachios to eat weekly, and pine nuts for treats. She doesnt care for human food still (except any cookie batter, choc. milk, soda, ice cream, chef boyardee's noodles and ground beef, juice and snickerdoodles- aka she doesnt eat human food).
She flies around our room and house freely now. She showers weekly. We use a parrot shampoo monthly that has finally gotten that nasty bitter deterrent off her feathers (so we're done using it now). And she has begun to splash about in her water bowl. She's also being more vocal (ugh). She is also finally destroying all her toysa dn swinging upside down, etc, like a normal bird. She's acting more like my darling Elvis was- except she's yelling more, but the preening still continues.
Any suggestions? And yes we ignore the screaming, but I admit with these pregnancy hormones raging I don't know how much longer I can ignore it and not yell back (it's seeming more and more logical each time she screams -_-). When she isn't screaming I do play with her and pet her, but sometimes she just flies back to her stand and continues to scream. She seems to scream more while she is preening.
