macaw feathers

[roy]

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My b&g macaw is not feather picking but he is pulling or the colouring is coming of and yhey do look tatty as anyone got any ideas why this is happening if u need to see the pics send me your email address and I will send you them as it says they are to large to post thanks for any advice

[terri]

tstines526@yahoo.com- Harlow just went through a huge molt[it even worried me a little] But do you feel lots of pin feathers? If you do hes probably molting and will be cranky.They will lose lots of feathers and look like hell.Keep up with his baths.As for the hormonal part watch where and how long your petting him.I would then try distraction .move toys, different outing experiences keep his sleep schedule strict.I bet you hes viewing you as his mate,My cockatoo does this with my husband.She used to be in the den with him and kept laying eggs.Now we moved her with the rest of my birds and she stopped.

[marie83]

How old is he and what is his diet like? Also when did he last moult if he isn't a baby?

I'm just asking because sometimes the feathers do get damaged from general wear and tear, particuarly baby parrots and "old" feathers which can make them look very scruffy until they next moult. Young birds also dont preen themselves as well as an older bird. Feather damage is also more likely in cages that are too small or overcrowded with toys etc.

Other things to consider are if you have noticed him paying more attention to the damaged areas, it may be that he is over preening or damaging the feathers himself by chewing. Is the damaged feathers localised to a small area? are there any signs of il health etc? How long has this been going on? Did it coincide with his hormonal behaviours?
Personally if you come to the conclusion he is overpreening or feather chewing then I would treat it as the same as a plucker and go straight to the vets as they reckon over 70% of plucking is related to health or nutrition issues rather than psychological issues and plucking or deliberate damage are pretty similar...

The fact you mention colour loss is interesting but something that I know nothing about.
In the meantime see if theres anything you can think of that might be stressing him, try to keep him occupied and ignore any chewing behaviours, agressive preening etc.

[roy]

Biggles is 7 yrs old ive only had him for 2 weeks hes feathers were not like that till about 4 days ago which is when I noticed him shredding paper in he's cage and putting it up the corner he started humping hes toy aswell he keeps kissing me and trying to feed me too ive taken to toy out removed the paper and anything that he could nest with when he tries to feed me I put him back on the play perch its as if it's hormones I think should I make his day times longer and what's the best food as I've read the food I feed him can cause the same problems there is always loads of food for him I was thinking of removing the food and cutting feeding times to twice aday with fruit in between meal times would I be doing the right thing

[marie83]

Yes don't feed him more than he needs to maintain his weight. Easiest way to figure this out is to weigh him for a few days (first thing in morning after his big poop and before he eats anything) whilst giving him more food than you know he will eat. Once you have a rough idea of his normal weight you can start reducing his food every few days until you find out where he starts losing weight. you can then put his food back up to the last amount of food that kept his weight steady, assuming he wasn't already under or overweight.

From a hormonal point of veiw, I don't think it matters what food you feed as long as it doesn't amount to more food than the bird needs (bird having too many calories available) other people will suggest avoiding sugary foods or high fat foods.

[roy]

Marie about he's hormones would u give him more daytime or more dark and would hes hormones have anything to do with his feathers m8

[marie83]

Yes it could be hormones if he is feather chewing.
From what I can see from a very quick search on the internet they usually breed late spring/early summer in the UK, this should mean if your parrots hormonal now you need to reduce light levels. This is something you might need to look into further, as I said I only had a quick look.

[Wayne361]

For hormonal control, what works for me is to give more veggies, and fruits (much less fruit than veggies) and less pellet in the birds diet. Also monitor intake i.e. dont overfeed and dont free-feed.

Wayne

[roy]

I'm trying to find out which I should do about more night time or more daytime normally he's in bed by 9pm and uncovered about 10am which is 13hrs sleep time so I don't know if I should decrease to help with his hormones.
Started today by removing his food at 11am little bits of fruit in between when I put the food bowl back in at 6:30pm so I've stopped the free feeding so I hope that helps

[Shelby]

Usually increase sleep and decrease the amount of daylight in your bird's room. It is the increased light in springtime which triggers hormonal/breeding behaviors. You can do this with thick blinds and put timers on your lights.