Abstract
"Why is my parrot plucking?" This question, which seems to he the alltime number one avicultural enigma, is difficult to answer, because there are so many viable reasons. Once it has been ascertained that no medical cause exists and every _other possible idea has been explored, both from experts and other bird owners, there should he a realization that something has been overlooked.
To find out what that something was, with participation from people with pluckers, a practical option presented itself in the form of a survey for feather pluckers. It seemed to he significantly important to try to find out the answer to ... Why does my parrot plucle; when none of the usual reasons fit?
The last six months of 1995, members of The Real Macaw Parrot Club of New Jersey and The Big Apple Bird Club of New York, aided by volunteers from the Internet, and others who wished to remain anonymous, contributed to a "Feather Plucking Survey" initialed by The Real Macaw Parrot Club newsletter. Its primary purpose was to see if an answer could he found on why parrots pluck. The results were amazing and of all the reasons we thought parrots plucked, everyone, including veterinarians, overlooked a reason that only surfaced when all the data had been collated, graphed, and compared. The following article has the long-awaited results of that survey.
One hundred sixty-eight 068) birds participated in the survey. Other responses were from people who did not have a bird that plucked, hut wished to include data that might he helpful.
One hundred fifty-nine Cl 59) of the birds had been veterinarian checked, while nine had not. The most common veterinary diagnosis was no diagnosis of a medical problem. Veterinarian
diagnoses: 1-proventricular dilatation; I-wings clipped at too young an age; 2--ohesity; 2-nutrition related; 2-thyroid problems; 3-hacterial infections; 3-low calcium; 3-hahit; 4-yeast infections; 5--dry skin; 5- allergies; 8--sexual frustration; 27- hehavioral, psychological, emotional, and neurotic; 9-not checked; 93-no diagnosis.
One of the questions on the survey was "Why do you think your parrot plucks?"
Some of the answers were: change in surrounding areas, taking the hird on vacation, ahuse hy previous owner, bird's routine upset hy owner changing job hours, stressful molt, had veterinarian experience, previous owner died or gave the hird away (separation anxiety), rejection hy another hird or person, jealousy of a new baby or a new hird, room temperature, stressful quarantine, weaned too young, overindulged when young then ignored, environmental stress from noises inside or outside the home and the list goes on.
One veterinarian with whom I discussed this problem suggested that some of the smaller hirds from New York City (or other major cities) that are pluckers, might pluck because of an allergy to mold found in many older city apartment walls. This is worth pursuing as the majority of small hird pluckers (in the survey) were from a large city, while the majority of large hird pluckers were from more rural areas.
In most cases, the hirds with a diagnosed medical problem stopped plucking when they received proper veterinary care. Some hirds with suspected nutritional prohlems stopped plucking when their diet was improved. Birds with sexual frustrations were cured when they were allowed to mate. Dry skin problems
(mostly from homes with gas hot air heat) were helped with the use of a humidifier and/or frequent misting.
The use of Elizabethan collars was useless in almost all cases. The use of anti-picking formulas and allergy medications only helped in three cases (in two cases, the medication turned the feathers red until the next molt). Giving the bird more attention was a big help in birds that had been left alone for a long period of time each day.
Other interesting attempts at a solution (some worked, some did not): putting the bird on a schedule, putting the bird in a larger cage, acupuncture, Vitamin E squeezed over seed, more sunshine, higher fat diet, more toys, surgery, Vitamin B, use of colored feather dusters for preening, putting a wig near the cage for bird to preen, and giving sips of mild chamomile tea.
Most of the questions in the survey were there only to eliminate all inconsequential events and to weed out all pluckers that were helped by eliminating either a medical or environmental problem,
So now what? As with all behavioral problems, no matter what type of animal ... or person .. .it is wise to try to "look" at the world in the same way as they do. After collating all the surveys and singling out all the birds that had not been diagnosed, I noticed something that cannot he overlooked:
For the most part, every question resulted in answers that, when compared, zeroed each other out, hut in almost every case, the undiagnosed bird lived in the same house with another bird that was not just another bird, hut a bird from a different continent.