Parent (F) plucking babies feathers

[swissbandit1974]

Hi all, we need urgent help wth a situation that has arisen.

We have two 4 weeks old baby senegals. All was perfect. No problems at all, both were feeding them and they were growing rapidly. Both Babies seem healthy and have some green and already some yellow feathers as well. Now the issue: This morning we discovered that the Momma bird plucked one of the babies back completley bare. I thought they were making strange noises and that when i checked. Back is bare, wings and body are still ok.

If i leave them alone i think She ist getting at it again since i hear the baby making the same noises like this morning. I interrupt this by going to the cage. I know that i probably will "train" her to do it so i come and see her but i dont know what else to do.

If i try to open the nesting log she is still very protective of the young.

She also started to pluck her own chest right after the babies hatched and has not stopped since.
She never had such issues.
Now, we are not sure... should we remove the baby that gets plucked and hand raise it? shuld we remove both of them? Is there anything we can try to make her stop doing it?

any experiences or help?

Many thanks

[Pajarita]

There is something upsetting her about the conditions. I can't tell you what it is from here so you would have to do an objective and thorough evaluation of everything. But, one thing I can tell you for a fact and it's that January is not a month when any bird in the Northern Hemisphere is breeding. So, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, it means that you manipulated conditions so the birds would breed off-season and people can never replicate Nature no matter how much they try so, most likely, that's one of the reasons. I got a pair of tiels with a baby once in the middle of the winter. They had had two babies but the parents killed one and had plucked and hurt the second baby (had a wound on his head) so the owners brought them to me. I handraised that baby but, unless you have lots of previous experience doing this and are home every day (you need to feed several times during the day and night), I suggest you find an experienced breeder or a rescue that could do this for you.

[swissbandit1974]

Hi and thanks for your opinion.

The senegal parrots are native to Africa in the southern hemisphere and i believe laying eggs in November, breeding in December is quite normal for them.

Conditions: Generally they seem to be quite happy since they actually got 2 young babies healthy and over a month old. They have a wide-spectrum bird light that is on for 12 hours a day.
We feed them a pellet based food (Harrison's) and lots of fresh veggies and fruits. Some seeds too mixed with dried veggies and the millet treat of course. Other snacks are dried figs and bananas. This has been always like this. Nothing changed.
Since they have babies we also ground some of the pellets and make them a warm (107F) formula a few times a day. Which they happily eat.

As i said, all was ok until today and I cant think about anything that changed... Light, food amount of attention.. all stayed the same.

The only thing i could see that would upset the mom is that we take the young out of the nest a couple times a day to handle them for a few minutes. (Not hand feed). We knowingly did not hand feed the parrotlets but still want to have them somewhat used to humans. This goes on since the babies are about 3 weeks old (for nearly two weeks now)
The parents still feed them now and as far i can tell, and is only the female plucking their feathers.

I wonder if i should just remove the Mom and let Dad raise the chicks.....

Remove the chicks but keep em close to the cage and put them 3 times a day back so the patents can feed them or not bother and remove them for good and hand feed them.

Any advice....

Andy

[swissbandit1974]

is there nobody that had a similar exerience? at this point i had to seperate the mom from the babies since she is obsessed with pluking their feathers.... any help is appreciated

[Pajarita]

Just because a bird is from the Southern Hemisphere, it doesn't mean that it will breed when it's summer there and winter here. Birds use three triggers for breeding: photoperiodism, food availability and weather conditions. It's always propitious weather inside a human home and we offer rich and plentiful food all year round so the only one left is photoperiodism and the reason why yours are breeding in the winter is because you are turning on artificial lights when it's dark outside, not because they are from the Southern Hemisphere (I have several species from the Southern Hemisphere, including senegals, and none of them are producing sexual hormones this time of the year).

And no, no experience whatsoever with what you are describing aside from what I told you before about the tiels. I breed birds but I keep them to a strict solar schedule and only breed them in the spring so I never have this kind of problem. I firmly believe that Mother nature knows best so I reproduce, as close as I can, all the natural conditions and, when it comes to breeding, it works like a charm (I have achieved all fertile clutches and zero infant mortality).

[swissbandit1974]

Thanks for the info.. never heard of a Senegal parrot that does NOT lay eggs in November... Mhh. got to do some reading on that but all the websites i seen so far confirm that pet senegals lay their eggs typially in November... even in captivity
I wonder: Do you think it is best to remove the little ones form the parents so they can be together OR remove the Mom from the little ones and the dad so he can finish raising them?

One one side i am afraid to give the mom too much stress if we remove only her and keep her in a seperate room on the other side i would love for the dad to finish the raising of the chicks..

What to do best?

Andy

[Wolf]

Hi
I am not a breeder of birds and as a matter of fact don't have a tremendous amount of bird experience. I do have extensive experience with other animals both as a breeder and in training. One thing that I have always noted is that if a human has too much contact too early the parents have a tendancy to get nervous, sometimes to the point of abandoning or even killing their young.I therefore offer that too much handling too soon may be the trigger for the behavior that your female is exhibiting. That does you little good for your present problem but may help you later if you allow another clutch. As for this set of young I would opt for hand raising them from this point as unfortunate as that is.

Hopefully someone with more experience than I will be able to help you properly address this situation. I only chimed in with this because no one appears to be offering you any advise on how to cope with this current situation and maybe this will help get the ball rolling in the right direction.

[swissbandit1974]

Hi all, i am in contact with Ginger from the senegal Parrot rescue place in AZ. ( http://gingersparrots.org/gingers_parrot_rescue ).

BAsed on what i learned so far we will seperate the little ones completley from the parents today. they are 5 weeks old and i just must chance it to hand feed and raise them. I did non stop reading and video research over the last two days, I pray to god that we be successul with our first hand feeding experience.

doing hours over hours on reserach on the net i must say that there is a lot of information about the babies but very little about the parrents. The only artikle i found that is all about the parents is a downloadable word file here: (or search google for: compassion parrot parents
http://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthegabrielfoundation.org%2Ffiles%2Fcravens%2FBNNov08--ResultsofStealingChicksEarly.doc&ei=RWXKUrCkO9CxhAfA_oHQBQ&usg=AFQjCNGeN2dPjAfo0q7_-k6YB4KN1DIZug&sig2=2bncX9V7KC9gCEXthls_GA&bvm=bv.58187178,d.ZG4


I keep you updated.

Thanks for taking the time

Andy

[swissbandit1974]

Here an update. after getting advice from a professional (Ginger from www.gingersparrots.org and her breeder friend Melody). We deided yesterday that we hand feed the babies from now on forward. The feeding went well so far without ny issues. The mom and mostly the dad seem still to search for the little ones. I am shure that they are sad about the loss, both of them. Especially the Dad. HE makes low sounds and keeps looking to the place were the little ones where. Sad to see but on the ther hand Mom is much calmer and we try to engage them in their routine they had before the babies as much as we can.

Thanks all
And Senegal Parrot owners: Please spend a few Dollars to Ginger and her cause. It is absolutley needed and appreciated.

Andy