I belong to a club. I have a good vet. I know what I'm doing.
I'll never have a picking (plucking) bird." And then it happens ...
feathers start appearing on the cage floor when it's not the right time
for a molt. Too many feathers appear on the floor of the cage. Then a
patch of pinkish/whitish skin appears where before there were green or
gray feathers.
And you get this sick, sick feeling at the bottom of your stomach:
"Oh-oh!
She's not plucking, is she?" But you know, deep, deep down inside that
indeed, your bird is plucking. Since Teddy Bird is one of the List's star
pluckers, I'll try to make a few observations:
First things first: for almost all of you, this will just be an
academically interesting (hopefully) article. The vast, vast majorities
of companion birds (including Quakers) do not pluck. But for some
mysterious reason (or reasons) some birds do pluck. To define terms,
plucking or picking is the same thing - the bird fixates on pulling out
healthy feathers until a bald spot appears. The much more serious
problem, self-mutilation, involves the bird actually biting or tearing
its own tissue or muscle, causing a wound. I'm not going to discuss
self-mutilation.
If you ever have to wonder: "Hey! Is my Quaker plucking?!" Then
he/she is probably not. You will know. Believe me, you will know. Right
now, and for the past three years, Teddy looks like Daffy Duck after
Elmer Fudd has shot him. It's unfortunately very easy to tell the
difference between a molt, even an extreme molt, and feather plucking.
In most bird owners' experience, a molt occurs about once or twice a
year, and the most noticeable feature about a molt is the slightly
increased daily amount of feathers on the cage floor. The old feathers
are pushed out by the new feathers coming in - helped along by the
bird's natural preening.
The loss of feathers in a moult is almost always asynchronous (one
from each side of the body - so that in the wild the bird is balanced
and can still
fly.) The bird many times looks a little raggedy, but there is no
bareness
- a PG-13 bird as opposed to an NC-17 plucker.
On the other hand, plucking is a continuous process where the bird
pulls out many, many feathers to the point of denuding itself. Full
frontal nudity - or at least bald patches. Teddy began and continues her
plucking very slowly. The first time, at 6 months age, she plucked her
lower breast and legs in the classic "brood patch" that some female
birds use to keep their eggs warm in the nest. The second and
unfortunately so far permanent time, she has plucked her crop, all of
her breast and belly, her legs, most of her back, and the top coverts of
her wings. Teddy still has a beautiful head of feathers - in some ways,
it looks as if she is wearing a helmet. That's a classic sign of
plucking - the bird can't get to the feathers on its head.
The onset of plucking happened very slowly, over a course of four or
five weeks. Teddy will pluck when she is alone, with Bilbo, or when she
is with me. There are times when I'll be holding her, and probably only
giving her half my attention, and she will give a slight squawk and hand
(beak?) me a still-sheathed new feather. Of course, that gets me upset,
and maybe that's the response she wants.
Now, what in the world have we done for poor Old Teddy Bird? Teddy's
vet is an Avian Diplomate. He came very highly recommended from my local
Bird Club. I think that he knows birds and how to treat them. The first
time he saw Teddy, he walked into the examining room and said: "Ho Ho!
Another plucking Quaker! What a surprise!" The vet said that Quakers are
a species that are prone to plucking - he thinks because they are such
communal, social birds, and the lack of interaction can throw some birds
off. (That's one of the reasons we bought Bilbo - a companion bird of
another species [Meyers Parrot], but so far, Bilbo's presence hasn't
helped Teddy's plucking.)
The vet said that he would not recommend a collar for plucking - that
a collar would only intensify Teddy's frustrations. He did have Teddy
DNA
sexed: Indeed she is female. With that information, he started Teddy on
a series of male hormone shots - in case the plucking was the result of
sexual frustration. Teddy received one injection and then came back for
a second injection 21 days later. She finished up with a third injection
7 days after the second shot. No luck. No change.
We took the next step after Teddy pulled a blood feather and covered
her cage (and herself) in blood. No mutilation, but the vet gave us a
bottle of liquid Valium and instructions to give her .05 cc's in the
morning and the evening. That continued for over a month, with no change
in the plucking, although Teddy was a tad more accepting of SWMBO - her
sworn enemy.
After the end of the Valium Experiment, we tried a series of herbal,
holistic remedies. Bonnie Doane, in her book "My Parrot, My Friend" had
mentioned some success with Pycynogenol (a pine bark extract) as a
treatment for plucking. I had mentioned Pycynogenol to our vet, and he
said that he had heard of it and that it was worth a try. "Keep me
informed on what happens." We agreed that an attempt to use Pycynogenol
couldn't hurt, but he personally did not hold out much hope. Every time
we have left his office, his last words have been that we may well have
to get used to living with a plucking Quaker, and that aside from the
plucking, Teddy was happy, healthy, and well adjusted.
So, we tried the Pycynogenol, morning and night, for 60 days. It
didn't work. Nothing. No change. Then, I went on and tried St. John's
Wort for 60 days. No luck. Finally, I tried Kava Kava for 60 days. No
luck. I'm willing to try any other remedy that sounds promising, but at
this stage, the vet and I believe that Teddy has destroyed many of her
feather follicles and will never re-grow all of her feathers, even if
she did stop plucking.
So, there we are. Teddy continues to pluck. She looks awful. But
beyond her looks, she appears to be happy, lively, intelligent, and
everything that we all look for in a companion bird. She's a closet
talker - talks mostly when no one else is around - but she always amazes
me with what she can say.
She's part of our family, and here she will stay. I just want to
close by restating that the great, great majority of Quakers (and all
companion
birds) do not pluck. So, this article should not dissuade folks from
adopting a Quaker. I will be very happy when someone comes up with a
cure for whatever is causing Teddy Bird's plucking, but until then, I
guess that I will have to be the pretty one in the relationship.
John D.
