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Calling All Plucking and Overpreening Greys!


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If you have a grey that has or is feather challenged, including plucking, over-preening or other kind of feather mutilation, post a response here or PM me. Large, small, long-term, or short-term pluckers are encouraged to contact me.

 

I'm starting a small study about feather issues with our Greys. I have a set of questions to send to responders, and then I'll compile and post detail information.

 

It is clear that there is a lot of misinformation out there, often anecdotal, with much of it contradictory. My hope is to document and find correlations with external factors as well as physical data, including diagnosed medical issues. I want to thank everyone in advance for their time and responses. The more information that I can obtain will obviously lead to better data and possible conclusions.

 

Again, please PM me or post a response so I can send the questions to you.

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Hello. I have a plucker/scratcher. I would love to participate in your study. I am a new Grey mom, although Angel is about 15. She's been through some sad times but seems extremely happy here with us. I'm wondering if her feather loss/scratching is due to dry skin.

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I think its great that you are trying to do some research. Feather plucking seems to be such a heartbreak for so many grey owners. It would be wonderful to begin to understand factors that may contribute to it. I'm just curious what questions you are asking and what things you are looking for. Is there a document you can post listing your survey questions? Keep us updated on what you find. I'm a newbie with all this. I haven't even gotten my grey yet, but when I did research about the species all the websites kept mentioning plucking as common behavior--as high as 50% with Congos (most seem to say Timnehs are less prone). I'd be curious to know what percentage of parronts in this forum have birds who feather pick. Just in casual reading, I haven't seen as much here about plucking as I expected. Most examples seem to be rescues. You think the phenomenon has been overstated?

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we haven't gotten our cag yet either. we should have her by valentine's though. we do have a peach front conure that plucks! i ignore it as best as i can. her vet checks are always fine. we've tried meds, which worked! she was off meds and doing great, then we had to put one of our dogs to sleep and it started up again. i've added an "old" toy to her cage, a fuzzy tent that she'd ignored in the past. now she's pulling all the fuzz off and i'm hoping this will be enough to let her chest feathers grow back again. i'd do meds again, but want to see if this strategy works first. right now she's wearing her famous "gray underwear", but i'd love to see her back in her lime green "clothes" again!

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Thank you to everyone that is indicating a desire to help out. I'm holding the questions for about a week more until we get a good group of responders and then I'll send them out to folks via PM. So be sure to check the Notifications tab at the very top of the page when visiting the site.

 

Regarding posting the questions here, I'll do that much later - I'd like as many direct responders as possible before a general dialog opens up on a message thread.

 

Thanks again!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Dave, I do not have a Plucker or an over Preener (yet anyway) nor have I ever had a problem with this with any bird I have ever had- but I do have a question.... Does there seem to be an average age at which a grey starts to pluck or over preen- Greyson is just now 5 mos old and was just wondering if there was an average age that this seems to begin.. Thanks in advance for any info-- Sherrie

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