Navre and Friends in Boston

[Navre]

Also might be heat? It's been over 85 in the bird room, and fairly humid.

[Navre]

I use pure water for the baths. I wonder if I should add the aloe?

[Navre]

Because he is so skinny, and stress set off this pluckimg that seems to be accelerating, we need to rule out PDD. I am going to take a fecal swab in and have that tested first. If it's negative he might have to go in for radiographs to check. The fecal swab is not very reliable, but at least if it's positive we won't have to do the other testing.

[Pajarita]

John, I SERIOUSLY doubt he has PDD because, if he had, you would have seen clear symptoms of it already. PDD can be slow but it's not THAT slow. Be careful not to start stressing him out more by taking him to the vet too often or giving him too many medicines. I've said it before and I'll say it again, in my personal experience and opinion, too much vetting and too many medicines end up killing them instead of making them better. Avian vets mean well but they follow a 'mammal pet' mentality where vetting, testing, medicines, etc have been proven to work but, unfortunately, it doesn't work with parrots. It's too stressful to them and added to the unavoidable and chronic stress of captivity, their bodies cannot cope. More birds are killed by stress than anything else. And Nicky is obviously stressed out but I don't think his stress is caused by temperature, the kind of water you use, senior versus regular pellets or anything that is directly related to environment or diet. I know you provide the best care anybody can give as well as all the love and patience in the world - I know VERY few people who are as good an owner as you are! But, sometimes, no matter how much we love them and how hard we try, our homes are just not the right one for some birds - and I think that might (MIGHT!) be the case with Nicky. It seems to me that he is a bird that needs to be an only bird and which needs to choose his human on its own. Of course, this is my completely uninformed opinion, you know better than me.

[Navre]

I'm going to send in the fecal swab, as that will cause no stress for Nicky. I'm going to go slowly and see how he reacts. It's been a week and a half that he has been plucking. Maybe he just needs more time.

[Navre]

Of course, reading that up to 40% of healthy appearing captive birds test positive for ABV makes me wonder what the point it.

[liz]

These little guys can be so sensitive that they pick up on your stress. They seem to know when you are worried about something. At this point you are worried about them and they know it.

[Navre]

These little guys can be so sensitive that they pick up on your stress. They seem to know when you are worried about something. At this point you are worried about them and they know it.

And, at this point, he is scared of me. He is scared of me because I'm the o e who has to scoop him up if he needs to be taken somewhere or put back in his cage.

[Navre]

I've had Nicky for a year as of yesterday

[Pajarita]

These little guys can be so sensitive that they pick up on your stress. They seem to know when you are worried about something. At this point you are worried about them and they know it.

And, at this point, he is scared of me. He is scared of me because I'm the o e who has to scoop him up if he needs to be taken somewhere or put back in his cage.

Isn't there a room where he can be safe day and night so he doesn't have to be put back in his cage? Maybe that is what is stressing him out... maybe he needs to be cage-free in his own room until he relaxes. Also, have you tried herbal tranquilizers like theanine, linden, valerian root, etc in his water?