Little homie started barbering. 2 days ago we woke up with a bunch of these at the bottom of his cage. It looked bad. and my wife and I were devastated.
I took his cage and tree stand apart and gave everything a deep clean and rearranged everthing. Made him a brand new batch of food leaving out most of the possible allergy culprits. Cut his treats. Contacted both his vets-going in tomorrow. Kept him with us for two days barely letting him out of sight. Cut his sleep time by two hours (I believe he's doing it during the waking hours)
He picked about 5 barbs off during the two days since the initial incident. He got a couple the night before and two more last night.
I couldn't figure out where they were coming from but after some inspection we found the impacted feathers.
Trying to figure out possible reasons.
-Stove. yesterday I noticed the burners on stove were burning with an orange tip on flames. I guess this produces more CO2 than just the blue flames. Put a call into the landlord. just waiting on the repair person to swing by today.
-sleep. Uglow sleeps for about 12 to 12.5 hours. the last hour of his sleep he's quietly chatty. Think he might just be awake and maybe bored. Maybe too dark to start playing so he turned on his wings.
-Hormones. for the last few weeks he's been wanted to seduce my hands almost every night. I would put him or send him to his flight stand and he would fly back to me to get to my hands. Nothing aggressive, just persistent. after about 5-10 attempts he would stay at his perch and start preening.
-Treats. Since he's been actively flying and regularly working his wings out I've been allowing more treats in his meals and foraging cups. I think this was a bad idea. He pretty much demands them now and we end up upsetting him when he doesn't get them.
-Toy fatigue. He's been pretty bored with toys lately. He's more interested in going to places and inspecting objects that are not toys. I think I gave him too many and now I can't seem to find something that's unique to him. Think I'm going to have to figure out more foraging options. gotta get creative.
-Training fatigue. Uglow's got about 5 or 6 tricks that he does fairly well. color rings he's a bit stubborn with. I haven't been able to train him on anything new in a while. He's so excited that he half asses something just to get his treat and move on to something. It's adorable but its frustrating too. if I pause for a second he hops on to me or he'll do spins until we acknowledge he's doing a trick.
-Night terrors. I don't know what causes them but every night or two Uglow screams and we wake up and tell him he's ok. It starts out softly and he gets louder and louder until we intervene. then he goes back to sleep.
-Allergy. the only new thing I can think of is milk thistle. After reading Katie's thread about poor Jasper I got some as a precautionary treat to give him once in a while. I made a new batch of fresh food leaving out some of the stuff I thought might be affecting him and adding some stuff he hasn't had in a while. He didn't care for it initially but then spent most of last night chowing down. Ordered allergy free sprout mix.
-Illness. Uglow was literally just tested for Psitticosis, Polyoma, Psiticine Beak and Feather Disease and had a complete blood count, fecal and mouth smear. He had his physical and everything came out normal.
-Daylight. it's cold now so he hasn't been getting any. Maybe I need to get a new bulb...do bulbs lose their potency over time?
-Calcium. earlier last week he toe tapped. 3 taps while sitting on my knee watching tv. I added a pinch Osteoform powder with his next meal. He didn't tap again that night or since. Osteoform was prescribed to him when his calcium level was a touch low earlier this year. he's been normal since.
-Humidity. I placed it next to his cage after the incident. The heat is on now so maybe it was probably getting too dry at night. During the day he usually gets two steam baths. I cut his showers down from everyday to once every 2 days because of the cold. but I'm going back to daily after this.
Nail biting. a few weeks ago my wife realized he was spending more time on his nails than usual during preening. there's no damage that I can see or any wounds or anything. he's feet look healthy. but I'll check with the vet tomorrow just be sure.
I don't know what else to consider and what else to change. Anything I'm missing?
To add to the stress of all this. We're gonna be boarding him at the vet this Christmas cause we're flying out of town and my in laws have cats. We got him a macaw cage so he'll have a bit more room but still we keep going back and forth on cancelling.
Anyway, Thanks for reading if you got this far. sorry, just had to get this out and organize my thoughts.
I took his cage and tree stand apart and gave everything a deep clean and rearranged everthing. Made him a brand new batch of food leaving out most of the possible allergy culprits. Cut his treats. Contacted both his vets-going in tomorrow. Kept him with us for two days barely letting him out of sight. Cut his sleep time by two hours (I believe he's doing it during the waking hours)
He picked about 5 barbs off during the two days since the initial incident. He got a couple the night before and two more last night.
I couldn't figure out where they were coming from but after some inspection we found the impacted feathers.
Trying to figure out possible reasons.
-Stove. yesterday I noticed the burners on stove were burning with an orange tip on flames. I guess this produces more CO2 than just the blue flames. Put a call into the landlord. just waiting on the repair person to swing by today.
-sleep. Uglow sleeps for about 12 to 12.5 hours. the last hour of his sleep he's quietly chatty. Think he might just be awake and maybe bored. Maybe too dark to start playing so he turned on his wings.
-Hormones. for the last few weeks he's been wanted to seduce my hands almost every night. I would put him or send him to his flight stand and he would fly back to me to get to my hands. Nothing aggressive, just persistent. after about 5-10 attempts he would stay at his perch and start preening.
-Treats. Since he's been actively flying and regularly working his wings out I've been allowing more treats in his meals and foraging cups. I think this was a bad idea. He pretty much demands them now and we end up upsetting him when he doesn't get them.
-Toy fatigue. He's been pretty bored with toys lately. He's more interested in going to places and inspecting objects that are not toys. I think I gave him too many and now I can't seem to find something that's unique to him. Think I'm going to have to figure out more foraging options. gotta get creative.
-Training fatigue. Uglow's got about 5 or 6 tricks that he does fairly well. color rings he's a bit stubborn with. I haven't been able to train him on anything new in a while. He's so excited that he half asses something just to get his treat and move on to something. It's adorable but its frustrating too. if I pause for a second he hops on to me or he'll do spins until we acknowledge he's doing a trick.
-Night terrors. I don't know what causes them but every night or two Uglow screams and we wake up and tell him he's ok. It starts out softly and he gets louder and louder until we intervene. then he goes back to sleep.
-Allergy. the only new thing I can think of is milk thistle. After reading Katie's thread about poor Jasper I got some as a precautionary treat to give him once in a while. I made a new batch of fresh food leaving out some of the stuff I thought might be affecting him and adding some stuff he hasn't had in a while. He didn't care for it initially but then spent most of last night chowing down. Ordered allergy free sprout mix.
-Illness. Uglow was literally just tested for Psitticosis, Polyoma, Psiticine Beak and Feather Disease and had a complete blood count, fecal and mouth smear. He had his physical and everything came out normal.
-Daylight. it's cold now so he hasn't been getting any. Maybe I need to get a new bulb...do bulbs lose their potency over time?
-Calcium. earlier last week he toe tapped. 3 taps while sitting on my knee watching tv. I added a pinch Osteoform powder with his next meal. He didn't tap again that night or since. Osteoform was prescribed to him when his calcium level was a touch low earlier this year. he's been normal since.
-Humidity. I placed it next to his cage after the incident. The heat is on now so maybe it was probably getting too dry at night. During the day he usually gets two steam baths. I cut his showers down from everyday to once every 2 days because of the cold. but I'm going back to daily after this.
Nail biting. a few weeks ago my wife realized he was spending more time on his nails than usual during preening. there's no damage that I can see or any wounds or anything. he's feet look healthy. but I'll check with the vet tomorrow just be sure.
I don't know what else to consider and what else to change. Anything I'm missing?
To add to the stress of all this. We're gonna be boarding him at the vet this Christmas cause we're flying out of town and my in laws have cats. We got him a macaw cage so he'll have a bit more room but still we keep going back and forth on cancelling.
Anyway, Thanks for reading if you got this far. sorry, just had to get this out and organize my thoughts.
