Feather Frustrated

[PipJulLor]

My husband and I are owned by Pippin a two year old grey who came to us @ five weeks old; a xmas present for me from my husband. He is our second bird; the first being a sweet little quaker (Jules) who is about nine months older than Pippin. We allowed Pippin to fledge and allowed him to develop his flying skills for about four weeks prior to having his wings clipped (modified). He was still able to fly but not gain height and quickly learned to compensate for the modified clip so I took him back to the groomer (same place, different groomer) who basically hacked his flight feathers. After that it's been one fall after another, one broken blood feather after another. Around this time we adopted a 13 year old Amazon (Lorie) who's owner passed away. I'm sure that all these events have combined to cause Pippin a great deal of stress. Over the last six months he has progressively become more difficult to get out of either his day house or his sleep house, each time flapping about and causing more damage to his feathers. He seems to have lost weight he couldn't afford to lose and generally seems miserable. I had been Pippin's favored human, but now it seems he associates me with all this feather trauma and any time I try to handle him he ends up hurting himself. It just breaks my heart. Is there hope?

[kittykittykitty]

Please don't give up! :ohmy: Others are much more experienced than I but want to say it takes lots of patience and time, moving slowly, using a soft, quiet voice and offering favorite treats to gain a Grey's trust. Can you let Pippin move from place to place on his own? Will he step up on a perch so he doesn't equate you with the moving? I have had no experience with broken feathers.

[she]

I am so sorry Pippin is having such a bad time.Are the flights growing at all? I always advise going to a vet for wing trims for this very reason.Maybe a vet visit could help determin how bad the problem is and an avian vet may suggest a solution.I know some are available, one is called imping.This is a method where donated feathers are attached to the birds own feathers enabeling flight.I do not know a lot about this but I do know it very affective.Sorry ,I am not sure if it is suitable but a vet can advise on that and cost. As Kitty said keep movements slow and offer treats by hand in the hope of regaining some trust.This is a problem that is all to common place.

[danmcq]

Hello PipJulLor and welcome to the forum!!

 

If I'm calculating all this correctly he was flighted at around 12 weeks old, allowed to fledge for four weeks, received a modified clip, the a hack job that left him completely flightless and falling like a rock. That is a terrible thing for him to have experienced at an age I would estimate to be around 20 weeks ( 5 months) old.

 

Now a year and a half later, at the age of two, he is combative, experiencing extreme discomfort from his mutilated feathers that have continued to be broken and plucked by him due to the constant pain and irritation he continually experiences.

 

Put the maturing process on top of that, the terrible two's and exercising his right to decide if he wants to step-up or come out of his cage on top of that. Then experiencing an extrication from his cage when he wishes not to at that time along with your frustration and anticipation of a fight and I see a disaster and bad experience every time.

 

One word I have not read, is Veterinarian, Avian specifically. You mentioned he could not afford to lose anymore weight. What does this mean? Has he always been under weight or did he slowly start losing weight some time period ago? Weight loss is generally attributed to illness and thus my asking where the Avian Vet is in all this?

 

The first thing you need to do is get your Grey to a Vet and have tests run for possible illness and the vets opinion of the condition of his feathers and plucking issue.

 

The second thing you need to do, is open the cage door and let him decide when and if he wishes to come out, with no drama that well exacerbate his frustration.

 

The third thing to do is start misting him atleast 2x a week with 100% Aloe Juice from a spay bottle until he is soaked. This will help relieve some of the irritation from the prickly feathers and dry irritated skin.

 

The fourth thing you need to do is make sure he has plenty of play and foraging toys in his cage to keep him mentally challenged and entertained.

 

The fifth thing you need to do is evaluate his diet and ensure he is getting proper nutrition by a well balanced diet of pellets, some nuts and seeds, veggies and fruits. Also, Red Palm Oil which you can purchase online from a health food store such as Swansons should be added by dripping 10 - 15 drops of it melted on his pellets, mixed in with oat meal, eggs etc.

 

Most importantly is to be relaxed, he can pick up on your anxiety and will reflect it back to you. Be calm, be patient and allow him to basically come and go as he pleases while offering treats and encouraging him to come over and visit you for a while with no conditions.

 

Looking forward to hearing more of how this progresses.

[Lyric]

Hello PipJulLor and welcome here. I would say that Dan has pretty much covered all the bases- he gives good advice. It will take some time to win back the trust of your grey because he probably does associate you with the terrible things he has been through lately. It will be important to let his wings grow back and let him get his confidence back by flying. If you take things slowly and don't give up you will be able to form a new bond with Pippin. The first step was asking for help with the situation and I'm really glad you've come to the forum- I hope you can get back on track and help Pippin to realize that you aren't a bad person.

[PipJulLor]

WOW! What great responses from everyone. Dan, I appreciate all your comments and see that I left out some history in my effort to reduce the length of my first post. Let me add Pippin's vet experiences. Our first vet visit was when Pippin was about 8 weeks or so, can't remember exactly but I do remember that he wasn't fully feathered yet. The vet didn't say so, but my husband and I got the feeling he didn't usually see birds that young for a wellness check. Anyway, he said Pippin appeared healthy and offered to do a gram stain and blood work if we wanted but his age didn't indicate it. We discussed concerns over the difficulty we were having hand feeding him, his weight (we kept a daily weight record), keeping him clean, top and bottom, if you know what I mean. All in all, not traumatic.

The next visit was an emergency visit to a different vet when, after the feather hack job, he fell to the floor. He'd been doing this alot at this point and I didn't think too much about it til I saw him bleeding from his beak/mouth. When he flapped his wings I thought I heard rattling. I immediately thought he'd broken his keel and rushed him to an Avian vet open on the weekend. He did a physical exam and said he didn't think anything was broken but wanted to keep him overnight and do x-rays the next day. I didn't feel comfortable w/ this vet and less comfortable leaving Pip w/ him. I took Pip home and all seemed fine.

A couple of months later he did the same thing but this time it was clear that he had broken his beak. This time I took him to a different vet who put a sealant on his beak and gave me pain meds for him. He noticed Pippin's damaged feathers and said Pippin was indulging in feather mutilation and needed a 'job' (foraging) and likely doesn't know he's a bird. The vet also said Pip was thin, but not necessarily underweight. We had a follow up visit a week later (a week of broken blood feathers), his beak was healing but the vet noticed more feathers that needed to be pulled and one that Pippin had broken at the base.:ohmy: About a month later we returned for a full blown yearly check up complete with gram stain and blood tests. The vet and I discussed diet, bathing, lighting, activity, housing, etc. Pippin has a large day house and a sleep house in our bedroom. We provide full spectrum lighting over his day house. Diet consists of fresh vegetables mixed w/ beak appetite in the AM, fresh fruit in the afternoon and Zupreem pellets mixed w/ small amount of various nuts and seeds available all day.

This is when Pippin started to resist coming out of his cage.

The vet never contacted us with results of Pippin's tests, so I have to assume nothing abnormal was found.

These days I let Pippin decide when to come out of his house. I avoid contact that could cause him stress or to hurt himself.

I hope this fills in some of the gaps. Thanks again for everyone's response. It's good to know there's support out there.

Karen<br><br>Post edited by: PipJulLor, at: 2008/11/22 02:01

[danmcq]

Wow, Karen, you have really been through the mill with Pippin. :ohmy: Obviously you have done everything you can in the way of Vet visits, provide a good diet, foraging and play toys, great home environment and lighting. Thanks for posting such a thorough update, which sheds a lot of light on Pippin and what he and you have been through.

 

How does Pippin interact with you now? When he decides to come out of his cage, is he interested in being close to you or interacting with you on any level?

 

I really feel for you and Pippin. It's been a tough 2 years and it will be a long process to help him become feather once again and to stop the plucking due to the irritation he is surely experiencing at this point.

 

We do try to provide as much support and empathy as possible in a virtual environment such as this forum. It provides us all a connection with others that have the same common interests and true concern for all and their flock.

 

There are many here with tons of experience in every area of Parrot keeping that you can imagine to include helping a Grey overcome plucking and how to best put them on the path to becoming fully feathered again.

 

I am positive they will respond to this post also. I am looking forward to hearing more from you and seeing some photos of pippin when you get a chance. :-)

[PipJulLor]

Here is a picture of Pippin's poor wings:

 

 

U can see a couple of feathers on each wing that are loose. Those have naturally fallen out since this pic. He seems to be going through a molt so we will see how his new feathers come in. He doesn't too much like getting misted but he tolerates it and will be getting several mists a week to try and help him through.

[danmcq]

Oh boy, I feel so sorry for Pippin. I can see why he would be constantly irritated and with no supporting layers of overlapping feathers to help protect and cover the new ones growing in, they are delicate and exposed to hit objects and get knocked loose or broken easily.

 

But, in the photo, he looks like he is just happy to be with and around you in his home. :-)

 

Hopefully Dave, who rescued a Grey that was plucked clean almost, can guide you in the right direction to and get you off on a good start at this stage of the game.

[kittykittykitty]

Poor baby! The two of you have been through so much!:huh:

[PipJulLor]

Pippin doesn't seem to want any interaction with me these days. In fact, he tries to get as far away from me as he can if I get close to where ever he is. He will go to my husband now without fuss or worry about further feather damage. Pip will now even go to my son (he's 23) if doing so gets him further from me. I've read that greys commonly choose a new favored human in adolescence which is probably contributing to Pip's defection.

I think I mentioned in my first post that we adopted a 13-14 yr old Amazon whose owner had passed away a year ago which was when Pippin's troubles were beginning to ramp up. Since then, the Amazon adopted me as his favored human and will not tolerate anyone else in the house. So, I'm wondering if this could be contributing to Pippin's woes. ?

Another question that my husband and I have pondered is would the addition of another grey help Pippin? The bird shop we frequent has a congo (don't know how old) and a three year old timneh for sale.

I don't know what to do, but I do know we've tried many things and will continue to try just about anything to help Pip.

I'm looking forward to hearing suggestions or similar experiences.

Karen

[danmcq]

Hello Karen,

 

It sounds like there are many dynamics taking place in Pippins life. He has had a terrible time with wing clips and vet visits. He is maturing and it sound like he is transferring his affections to other family members, as they do sometimes (Which is fine and normal behaviour sometimes). He now has a competitor for attention, namely the addition of the Amazon that has latched on to you for attention.

 

I could be wrong, but I have a gut feeling the addition of another bird to your home, whether a Grey or not. Is just bad timing and would increase the changing social dynamics in his flock and home.

 

With you linking the arrival of the Amazon to the timing of Pippins spiral downwards and shift in attentions. I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of his reactions and change in favorites and feather plucking.

 

You may just need to sit back for a while and not try to force interaction with Pippin. Let the relationship with your husband and son blossom and encourage them to spend as much time as possible interacting with him and giving him the love, encouragement and support he needs to overcome his present resentment and perhaps a slow down in the feather plucking.

 

It may be hard, but you can enjoy Pippin still from a distance and love him just a strongly as you always have. Just as our children grow and change their need for up close and personal interaction. So do our Greys as they mature and start becoming more and more independent.

 

To sum this up, you have two things to work on here:

 

1 - Let the new relationship take its natural course between Pippin, your husband and son. Encourage them to give him all the time and love he requests. Let them be the ones to mist him, care for him etc. You can still take part too, but in a lesser degree. But, you should as much as he will tolerate.

 

2 - The feather plucking and need to mist with Aloe, place gel on any red and irritated areas needs to be done consistently. Also get some Red Palm oil and start including that in his diet. There are threads detailing the use of Red Palm Oil and how to mix it in with foods undetected by your grey. Just type in Red Palm Oil in the search filed and hit enter to find them.

 

I do hope Dave will also comment on your post, as he has tons of experience in dealing with exactly this type of situation.

[casper]

Karen,

 

I can really sympathise with you at the loss of feathers.

My eldest grey Charlie has been missing his flights for about 9 months now. He lost his flights in an earthquake.

Every time he grows some back due to the loss of primary coverts as well he will have a crash landing and knock the new flights out.

When this first happened, Charlie's relationship with me changed also, he seemed to blame me for the loss of flying and we have gone through a tough 9 months but I am pleased to say we have got an even stronger bond back as he depends on me to carry him all over as well.

It can be so frustrating, I know how you feel I am still feeling it now and you feel so helpless as there is nothing you can do to speed up the progress.

 

Dan has offered some wonderful advice there is nothing more I can really add!

 

I too would let the new relationship develop, I dont think I would add another member to the flock just yet.

 

I wish you all the very best, please keep us updated on Pippins progress.

 

Caroline.

[Dave007]

Hi PipJulLor

 

More than likely, my post here won't be in the proper order concerning the subjects that were brought up so it will take a bit of time for you to put things together. I'm not good at putting things in the proper order.

 

In my eyes many of the problems of your bird's wings have very little to do with many of the other problems you discussed and had the bird tested for although the many tests that were performed are good tests that many birds go through because of other illnesses.

 

 

The act of fledging takes a lot longer than 4 wks. Actually, birds no matter what the age is need to learn how to fly all over again when going into a new home. It's a new place and the bird needs to maneuver around that new place. It may be aggravating to the owners, but by the bird doing that, it regains the already established art of doing something with confidence. You waited 4 weeks and clipped him. The clip was successful. You immediately felt that because the bird was achieving success, you decided to have him clipped again because you wanted to conform the bird to your needs, not the bird's needs. The clipping was bad. The bird suffered with that clip. No sooner did he start feeling comfortable, you had him reclipped. That was a wrong thing to do. You had a 2 yr old parrot that had built up confidence in those 2 yrs and you altered the bird's abilities and his confidence level. Birds are meant to move around and the only way they can do that is by flying. That too annoys many parrot owners. Why does a grey need to have the extra time to stay flighted? Greys are heavy set parrots who don't fly alot in the wild. They are perchers. BUT, they do learn how to fly out of necessity. In the home they're not your obvious pain in the ass fliers that go all over the place all day long. They go from point A to point B to point C. They're not like long tailed parrots which constantly fly such as macaws, quakers, rosellas, ringnecks etc etc. Doing something like what you did can very easily affect a bird's personality and out goingness with the owner. Another thing is a lousy clip. In almost every case of drastic clips what follows is broken blood feathers which are the flight feathers. In long tailed parrots that break their tail feathers, blood comes out of that area too. The lousier the clip, the longer the correction will be. A lousy clip causes more serious problems than a correct modified clip.

 

When a male dog is taken to a vet and is properly neutered, that dog will still hump things around the house and will even do it to female dogs. Nothing will happen but doing that might aggravate the owner. So, what's the next step? Have the dog's penis removed?

 

He said Pippin appeared healthy and offered to do a gram stain and blood work if we wanted but his age didn't indicate it. We discussed concerns over the difficulty we were having hand feeding him, his weight (we kept a daily weight record), keeping him clean, top and bottom, if you know what I mean. All in all, not traumatic.

The next visit was an emergency visit to a different vet when, after the feather hack job, he fell to the floor. He'd been doing this a lot at this point and I didn't think too much about it til I saw him bleeding from his beak/mouth. When he flapped his wings I thought I heard rattling. I immediately thought he'd broken his keel and rushed him to an Avian vet open on the weekend. He did a physical exam and said he didn't think anything was broken but wanted to keep him overnight and do x-rays the next day. I didn't feel comfortable w/ this vet and less comfortable leaving Pip w/ him. I took Pip home and all seemed fine.

A couple of months later he did the same thing but this time it was clear that he had broken his beak. This time I took him to a different vet who put a sealant on his beak and gave me pain meds for him. He noticed Pippin's damaged feathers and said Pippin was indulging in feather mutilation and needed a 'job' (foraging) and likely doesn't know he's a bird. The vet also said Pip was thin, but not necessarily underweight. We had a follow up visit a week later (a week of broken blood feathers), his beak was healing but the vet noticed more feathers that needed to be pulled and one that Pippin had broken at the base.

 

 

Any bird who gets a lousy clip is gonna fall to the floor over and over again. The wings are mutilated, tender, extremely bendible, not fully grown. Basically, there the same new feathers that a baby bird will grow. You took your bird to the vet and he said the correct thing after seeing the condition of those blood feathers. They had to be removed or else more bleeding would occur if these soft feathers were banged around. But there is a down side tio this..the bird will have even less feathers and that will cause the bird to not be able to progress. The pulling of the feathers lengthens the amount of time in which they will grow out.

 

I'd like to explain the anatomy of a parrot's feathers and I'm gonna compare it to human male pattern baldness.

Just under the skin is the follicle. A hard pointed shaft grows out from that cuticle. Other than the head of a parrot all of these shafts come out and lay against the skin. The shaft is where the feather will grow out of. When this shaft is getting bigger, the points of that shaft jab into the bird's skin. It's painful and the first thing a bird does in order to relieve that pain is to pull that shaft out. Many ttimes, the bird is so irritated that he also pulls out the follicle. In that area no more feathers will appear. No follicle, no shaft. No shaft, no feather.

In a man, male pattern baldness will eventually happen when the follicle under the skin starts to dry up and close. That prevents hair from growing out. The area becomes permanently bald. Many times it runs in families.

""The vet said that the bird * needed a job such as foraging*. Well, many greys don't show that desire to forage. They don't need to dig up food which is constantly nearby. If the bird did forage, it would be in very short bursts and won't last long at all. It's a part time job that doesn't produce much salary.

Because of a shitty clip, there's a very big chance that the bird will fall because of the lack of balance. Many birds break or crack their beaks but many birds also have that happen for other reasons too.

 

"""""Pippin doesn't seem to want any interaction with me these days. In fact, he tries to get as far away from me as he can if I get close to where ever he is. He will go to my husband now without fuss or worry about further feather damage.-----

 

Well, why not? You caused him problems, discomfort. You put him into a situation in which he has to be kept in a cage more than usual. Everyone will tell you that a grey who is out of thye cage for long periods of time is a more well adjusted bird because with wings, that bird has the ability to leave things and places when he feels like it. That doesn't exist anymore. At least for now.

 

"""Another question that my husband and I have pondered is would the addition of another grey help Pippin? The bird shop we frequent has a Congo (don't know how old) and a three year old timneh for sale.""""

 

So, you're thinking about getting another bird which very likely make your bird more nervous. A new bird will have the upper hand because he has all of his natural function in tact. Think about that very seriously. There's no guarantee that it will work. Right now is the time to deal with a problem that's visible and not bring in a potentially different problem which will affect your even more.

 

Your bird has a long journey back. It'll take time. Lots of time, physically and mentally.

 

Your bird being thin or heavy has nothing to do with a feather plucking/ chewing problem unless an extremely poor diet is being used. Obviously, your bird's diet is decent.

 

You'll have to deal with this bird in a totally different way now because he's now different and any connection that needs to be done has to be done by the owner knowing that the bird is partially an invilid. He'll stay in the cage more. He'll not trust you as much. He won't be as active as he was. He;ll be more quiet. He'll look like he's moody. You'll have to compenate. He falls down more? The perches need to be lowered more. He comes out and jumps off the cage or stand? A thick cheap throw rug should surround the cage so that when he jumps, that keel bone won't suffer a traumatic experience and what remaining flight feathers that are there won't crack as easily.

 

I've dealt with birds who were in much more serious condition than your bird. One of those birds is mine. No feathers at all. No communication with people at all. Had a long period of time to learn the art of mutilation. Big changes had to be made and that bird was obstinent through the whole process until that painful stage of his shaft tips started to finally move away from the skin. He didn't know how to fly. He didn't know how to deal with people. He was afraid. He was withdrawn. He was a biter in the beginning because he was frightened of his own shadow. But as bad as he was, the worst bird I ever dealt with was a Goffins TOO that almost died because of what he did to himself.

 

on this board, there are even pictures of my bird and believe me, the beginnings of this bird with my wife an d were visibly frightening.

 

I've looked at the picture of your bird. I see nothing extremely drastic there. He still has a few flight feathers. The lower feathers aren't there. Usually, it's the other way around. The longest feathers are the most common to get injured. He has a very good chance of having the other feathers grow back but it will take time. Lots of time. Don't mess around with this bird's physical abilities in the future. He's a bird. Let him be a bird.

 

With the people here, you should be asking everyone's opinion about what tricks they have as far as dealing with a cage bound bird. Believe me, there are many birds like that.<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2008/11/23 21:08