Hello - first time parrot owner!

[Wolf]

Rice Krisp[es are a no-no, they are made for humans and are fortified with iron and other vitamins, have too much sugar in them and contain preservatives. The Dari treat that you are giving the budgies are much better than similar type treats offered in the USA for our birds, but I really am not a fan of giving them sugars or eggs. Although I can accept eggs during breeding season due to the additional nutritional requirements of the bids.
I think that although you are feeding your birds much better than the majority of bird owners that I know of through this and other forums I think that there is still room for improvement. The biggest issue that I see with the diets that you are feeding is in the free feeding of seeds, because this has been proven to lead to liver, kidney and heart disease in birds. To correct this in my birds I feed a cooked mix of whole grains and vegetables in equal amounts, to which I add a cooked mix of white beans and lentils although you could also add some other legumes as well, I add this to the grain/ vegetable mix in about a 25 to 25% ratio, mix and offer just a little warmer than room temperature. I then offer a leafy green, a raw vegetable and a fruit on the side. Then I give them a seed mix for their dinner, which I remove when the birds go to sleep at night. This is a good, healthy diet for all of your birds although the budgies may not eat the fruit.
Getting birds to eat a healthy diet is not always an easy task and requires persistence, patience and consistency, you may offer any fruit or vegetable for months before they will eat or even taste it and they may love one of them on one day and refuse it the next day. Two years after my birds came here, I am still working with them on improving their diet. So far the method that has helped the most with my birds to get them to try new and different foods is to eat the food in front of them until the decide that they have to have some of it, I then offer them a piece and most of the time they reject it ,but keep trying and they will eventually start eating some of it.
Back to feather plucking! My CAG is now 17 yrs. of age and when she came here she was naked and had big holes in various places on her body as her plucking had escalated to mutilation. Today she has healed and no longer mutilates herself, she has regrown the majority of her feathers, although I still see evidence of feather barbering, a lessor version of plucking, and have noticed the occasional plucking, when she gets nervous. Will you birds feathers grow back as they should? I really can't say as it depends on the amount of damage to the follicles that the feathers grow in from. At her age, I would have her checked by an avian vet to rule out any physical causes of this behavior. Often a bird will pluck feathers from a spot directly over a place where they are experiencing pain such as over the liver or other organ. Dry, itchy skin can cause them to pluck feathers, which is partly why the aloe helps. Foods and/ or additives in their food that they have an allergy to can also cause this behavior. This behavior is fairly common in captive birds, although it is rarely seen in wild birds and then only due to a medical reason. The stress that we humans place on our birds that they can't adapt to seem to be the biggest reason for this behavior. These are all highly social birds and they need the companionship of other birds. While this is true we have a difficulty in that we can't just fix this by getting them a companion bird or even a mate as they are very likely to reject the other bird. But we can have more than one bird and let them reside near each other in a separate cage for company.
I also do not recommend kitchens for birds to reside in and usually recommend that they be in a separate room as opposed to being in the dining area of a kitchen/ dining room combination. There are several reasons for this aversion of mine, with the first and foremost of them being the cooking film that always seems to settle everywhere and on everything. This film is usually caused by airborne particles of cooking oils and fats from the food and it will settle on the birds as readily as on a countertop. The bird then ingests these oils and fats when they preen their feathers and no amount of low fat, low protein diet can reduce these in their system. the other reasons are all safety reasons such as open pots of boiling or hot liquids, open containers with water ,soapy or not and the prevalence of sharp objects and possibly hot surfaces that they could land on with resulting injury. For these reasons when my kitchen is in use my birds are put in their cages and are never allowed in the kitchen area weather it is operating or not.
Well I hope this will prove to be useful to you.

[Pajarita]

First of all, thank you so much for taking in an older bird, for taking pity on poor Bobby and getting his brother to live as his companion, putting his happiness before your desires of a talking bird and for becoming, even though you were not a bird person, Rosie's human. You have a kind heart and special empathy that lots of bird people lack. Kudos to you!!

Now on to other subjects. The worst thing about keeping them in a kitchen is not the oil residue that deposits on their feathers and is later ingested by the bird (which is definitely bad), it's the oil that 'floats' in the air which they breathe in and ends up coating the lining of their lungs and air sacs. It literally kills them. Not immediately, of course, but just as surely as poison.

Senegals are dimorphic (males look different than females) so there is never a need to DNA, all you have to do is look at the bird and you can tell. In your bird's case, you can't because she plucked all her chest feathers where the difference between the two genders show (males have a short green V on their chest and show a lot of yellow on the sides and abdomen while females have a long green V with a vertex that reaches almost all the way down to their vent and show little slivers of yellow on the sides) but she did show it as a juvenile and that's how the breeder and previous owners knew.

Now, as to her plucking... Wolf is correct, medical causes need to be ruled out first although, in my personal experience, 99.99% of the time, the reason is hormones and emotional distress. Birds need to be kept to a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk (it's the change in light spectrum -you know, that special reddish light that only happens at twilight- that 'starts' and 'stops' the glandular stopwatch that sets their 'internal clock' and determines the circadian cycle as well as the circannual one (circadian referring to the length of the day in terms of light, which, in turn, determines the different annual 'seasons' like breeding, molting and resting season and, for the birds that migrate, the time to do this). If you expose a bird to a human light schedule (lights on early in the morning before sunrise and later in the evening after sundown), the bird's body 'thinks' it's breeding season all year round and will keep on producing sexual hormones all the time -something that never happens in nature. Feeding the parrot high protein (seeds, nuts, pellets, etc) all the time contributes to this problem (breeding for birds always coincides with the season that produces the richest food) PLUS it destroys their liver and kidneys (parrots are not natural seed eaters, some of the smaller species are granivores but most of them are what it's called 'canope feeders' meaning the find all their food in the top of the trees they live on and that food is buds, leaves, fruits, etc -all VERY low protein).

So, in my personal opinion, her plucking started from a combination of been overly hormonal (which not only means sexual frustration but also physical discomfort and even chronic pain because birds sexual organs are dormant except during breeding season when they become active and grow so a bird that keeps on producing sexual hormones ends up with HUGE gonads which displace other internal organs) from a human light schedule and free-fed high protein and plain loneliness and neglect. You've taken care of the loneliness and neglect and improved her diet 100% (you've done great!) but you need to stop free-feeding high protein and put her on a bird light schedule to eliminate all her health and emotional issues once and for all.

I would also highly recommend your taking her to an avian vet for a check up and ask for a bile acids test added to the normal CBC and chem panel, because, after 17 years of eating high protein all the time, she is sure to have liver and possibly also kidney damage and you need to know whether this is the case and, if it is, how severe so you can start treating and reversing some of the damage.

I have two senegals right now (male and female which I am trying to get to bond -see the thread about the plucking sennie's experiment) but had two more in the past and they all did very well on gloop and raw produce for breakfast and a measured amount of low protein seed mix for dinner... you might want to try that.

[pinkiepunksmummy]

Sorry to not have back sooner....

Thankyou everyone for the replies, to clear a few things up (I should have been clearer!)

The 'Rice Krispie' treats are not actually Rice Krispie, they are Rainbow Drops, but I don't think you have them in the USA.....they are maize and rice balls with a coloured coating, no iron...(natural colourings and a little sugar) but she only has 1 if I need to distract her when cleaning/maintaining her cage. Not ideal, but guaranteed to keep her beak occupied!

And, Rosie and the budgies are housed in the kitchen/diner because there is literally no-where else that is suitable...they need to be a safe height so my Jack Russell Terrier will not get to them (partly for his protection because I'm sure Rosie would make a mess of his little black nose if he poked it through the cage!) And our living room/family room is in the cottage part of the building with a small window and low ceiling, I am sure it would be too dark for the birds.
The kitchen diner is a massive room with floor to ceiling sliding doors and a large window, the kitchen is the opposite end of the room to the birds and we have a very efficient extractor fan, plus we rarely eat fried food!
Also, none of the birds come out of their cages, and when we are doing their big weekly clean, there is no cooking going on just in case...we are all far too busy talking to and entertaining the birds!

Rosie is doing great, stopped the naughty pecky bitey behaviour and stopped nest building too, so it must have been hormonal....she is back to her lovely playful, cheeky, funny self!

Her feathers are coming on, she has two yellow ones on her chest and a green one on her tummy that have been there for 2 months without her pulling them...and a smattering of white downy ones which she seems to preen not pluck like she was doing. I will upload some pictures

[Wolf]

I understand what you mean about not having any other space to place the birds, so although kitchens are not the best of all places for them, it can be made to work out as long as you are aware of the potential hazards so that you can control them. Sometimes we have to just do the best that we can.
The budgies will do fine with each other and as long as their cage is large enough they can get by without getting out although it would be better if they could get some time out.
The Senegal is really a whole other thing as she is the only one of her kind and, while I am sure that the closer proximity of your family to her has helped her with her plucking issues, she would do so much better with time out to look about and to spend time with and on you. I have just put my parrotlet up as well as my Grey for a while and Kiki, my Senegal is perched on me as I am typing this right now. My birds average about 4 hours apiece out of their cages every day, unless something comes up to prevent it, such as my recent trip to get my new parrotlet for my other parrotlet as they are like budgies and love birds as far as needing their own kind.
You are missing out on so much of the pleasure and love that these wonderful little creatures have to share by not giving them, especially the Senegal, time out of the cage to exercise and to just hang out with and on you. There is nothing quite like watching your bird come walking across the floor or flying to you just to be with you. Or to have them talking to you in your ear whether it is in parrot or in human words.
Yes, you have a dog and a Jack Russel is probably not the best breed of dog to have around a bird, but he could go to another room or maybe outside for a couple of hours while you spent time with your birds out of their cage. At least think about it.

[pinkiepunksmummy]

I understand completely what you mean about the birds missing out on not being able to come out of the cages, but I am not sure that Rosie the Senegal will ever come out.....according to her previous owners (we know them well, have known them for 20 years) she did use to come out occasionally but when she was still young she was flying low to the ground when their dog grabbed her...they thought she was dead, but luckily she as okay apart from ruffled feathers and shock, since then she has never been out of her cage, refused to come out full stop.......

She never even attempts to come out, she comes and stands by the open door for me to scratch her and talk to her, but only for me, although she comes to the bars and sticks her head against them for the children or my mum to scratch her (mum lives here too).

We took her into the garden in her cage for a bit of sunshine and a change of scenery (supervised and locks on doors!) but she hated it, cowering at the bottom of the cage, flapping, and not making a single sound....the budgies love it and chatter away like mad.

And as for the budgies, they have a very big cage, plenty of room for wing exercises and some flying ....I'm not sure we'd get them back in the cage, Bertie in particular is flitty and nervous. My husband and I are working on a small aviary plan - so the budgies could go out during the day and get a lovely lot of exercise!

[Wolf]

I hear you on the incident with the dog and the Senegal, but if you take your time you may be able to gain her trust if the dog is not in the room to get her to come out onto your hand. Just go slow and let her set the pace.
I was not too concerned about the budgies as they have each other.

[Pajarita]

Birds that have been caged for a long time tend to be afraid to come out -same as convicts that have been in jail for too long are afraid to leave the jail- but this indicates a mental issue which is not healthy for a bird so it would help her a lot if you would keep on trying. Just leave the door open all day long and put a couple of perches on the outside of the cage and, when she does go on the outside perch, praise, praise, praise and reward (but, please! not with the Rainbow Drops, I checked them out and the first ingredient is processed sugar which is real bad for birds - try a piece of almond instead).

My birds come into my kitchen every day but I don't really cook so it's safe for them. If you do, you need to make sure that you don't fry anything and that you always have a super duper potent air exhaust (not the filter ones but the ones that take the air outside) working.

[seagoatdeb]

Hello first time parrot owner, and wow, it sound like you are doing great at it. I was saddened to hear that her previous owner had only given her two perches and so few toys becuase she destroyed them. Senegals and all Pois love chewing. It is important to give them lots to chew on and destroying is not the right way to look at it at all. They so enjoy chewing up wood bits, it is one of their great loves. i love to see them devour their toys and have gotten really good at making chewable toys that I can easily replace the chewable peices. I am so glad you are making such positive changes for her.

[seagoatdeb]

I also do not recommend kitchens for birds to reside in and usually recommend that they be in a separate room as opposed to being in the dining area of a kitchen/ dining room combination. There are several reasons for this aversion of mine, with the first and foremost of them being the cooking film that always seems to settle everywhere and on everything. This film is usually caused by airborne particles of cooking oils and fats from the food and it will settle on the birds as readily as on a countertop. The bird then ingests these oils and fats when they preen their feathers and no amount of low fat, low protein diet can reduce these in their system. the other reasons are all safety reasons such as open pots of boiling or hot liquids, open containers with water ,soapy or not and the prevalence of sharp objects and possibly hot surfaces that they could land on with resulting injury. For these reasons when my kitchen is in use my birds are put in their cages and are never allowed in the kitchen area weather it is operating or not.
Well I hope this will prove to be useful to you.

Thanks for the post Wolf, human chefs have a higher incidence of lung cancer, so those airborne particles are not healthy for us either. I am a mostly raw food eater, so very little cooking done except for steaming or boiling for the birds, or soup for me...lol

[Wolf]

Among other things I have worked in many restaurants as a cook both high end dinner clubs and normal family restaurants as well. the amount of grease and other airborne particulate that you breathe in during a month working in an industrial kitchen is more than most home cooks will inhale in a lifetime.