I've been reluctant to post this. Oddly, when your parrot starts to pluck, it makes the owner feel so inadequate, so much of a failure, I was quite overtaken with it and embarrassed!
About 2 months ago. we noticed a disturbance in his feathers on his upper breast. IT slowly progressed to the point where we knew there were feathers missing, and has now progressed to the point where there is bare skin showing. He has gone to his Avian vet 6 weeks ago and received a treatment for feather mites, even though the vet did not see any signs of them. Did not work and the condition continued. Then, 4 weeks ago, after discussion, the vet gave him the first of 2 Lupron shots, in the theory that his unusually strong mating season behavior this year was causing him to pluck. He got the second shot 1 week ago. It has not stopped the behavior so far and the bare spot continues to grow.
the vet did a full blood panel etc etc on the initial visit, everything is normal except his weight which is high and I've adjusted his diet to get him to trim down a bit.
What is really weird is - there are no feathers to be found, anywhere - not on the floor , not in his cage, nothing. Is It possible he is
eating the feathers, totally, after he plucks them? Also weird is we never ever see him doing the plucking, only time possible could be when he is covered up for the night, which is 10PM to 10 AM.
Any ideas, anyone? Its so unusual for Amazons to pluck, but he is not the first Yellow Shoulder I have seen doing it. There is another one locally, and she is badly plucked. I've started to mist him every 2-3 days with water, but previously for the last 9 years its been more like 2-3 months, since his species is from an arid, dry environment.
Any thoughts, advice or comments? Trust me, for those of you whose parrots don't do this, if your parrot starts plucking , it is totally demoralizing!!
