This is Paulie

[patti]

here a video of her doing it:

[galeriagila]

Poor thing... she just seems so DRIVEN, doesn't she??????
I'm so sorry.
Yes, she MUST still just be very fragile.

[Pajarita]

Well, she is definitely preening way too much and although I only saw a few down feathers in her beak, the way she is doing it is not what one would call normal when they are dry... Have you tried distracting her when she gets like that? I don't mean scolding her or anything like that but something like giving her a little treat or taking her for a ride on the shoulders or playing with her with a toy...

[patti]

I'm so glad I posted that video!! Yes, driven is a great word for it. Usually her preening is something along the lines of "doop-de-doo, i'm making myself beautiful, doop-de-doo" as opposed to here, where it appears like she is trying to kill her feathers and the world for being so irritating. I think that in person (as opposed to the video) it is more obvious that she is actually pulling them out.

I don't know much about the limbic/endocrine system in birds, but I know that in humans a generalized state of anxiety is the result of an endocrine feedback loop that gotten so far out of control that it starts to short circuit. This is what causes panic attacks and eventually PTSD. People under constant stress become hyper sensitive to even the slightest stressors so it is often something little that actually sets off the attack (like a car driving by too fast or something).... so I am guessing this is what is happening with my Lily right now, because she freaks out in situations that previously weren't a problem at all - like this newfound fear of squirrels. If that is correct, then the solution is to continue distracting her and calming her down BEFORE she short circuits to break that cycle, and then continue to do that while waiting for her generalized state of anxiety to calm down, which will take a long time.

I know I am probably anthropomorphizing here, but if it turns into effective intervention, I guess that's good. im not a vet or behaviorist so i have to go with what i know to make sense of things.

Unfortunately, that translates into distracting her almost every time she starts preening, which is almost all the time.... Sometimes it doesn't turn into what she was doing in the video, but stopping her before she gets to that point means she is still "with it" enough to be distracted. I tried distracting her once she started behaving like she was in the video, and all she wanted to do was bite me. Distracting her before she reaches that point, I have gotten her to play with some of her favorite toys, get her to follow me around the house, or my favorite, we play "go home, come here" for treats and it works wonders to keep her occupied, make her happy with her favorite treats, and al that back and forth really tires her out. the most effective so far seems to be a little shake or shift of position (to stop her from what she is doing) followed by head scratches and "good birdies" - then giving her something plastic to destroy.

Today I will step up on the distraction efforts... I can be home all day today and tomorrow, so that should help too.

I wish she was like old man Paulie, who I have recently discovered is an AVICALM JUNKIE!!

[galeriagila]

Patti,

Very interesting... your analyses sound very reasonable to me. Hang in there, Lily dear.

Oh, Paulie... I love every BlueCrown I see... I can't help it: they remind me of that silly movie. I own the video. I cry every single time Marie sings that song to Paulie at the end.

[Pajarita]

Sometimes, we have no choice but to extrapolate from our 'human' information and apply it to our birds... It might not be the purest scientific method but we know so little about them that the 'right' option is taken away from us.

Personally, I swear by routines. I think that having a super strict schedule of routines during the day helps a lot with their anxiety. It's not an immediate thing... it takes quite a long time if one goes by what one would like to see in terms of success eliminating aberrant behaviors but it does work.

Now, I hope that what I am going to say doesn't discourage you because it's not meant that way but I have the feeling that Lilly is what I call a 'wronged' baby. There are studies that show us that birds that were stressed out in infancy remain high-strung their entire lives and I believe that most pluckers belong in this group. If you have been following Navre's rescue thread and read the AWFUL conditions the birds were living under in the breeder's house that was emptied due to a hoarding situation, you will understand what I am talking about. Stressed out, half depleted parents cannot produce healthy babies. It's as simple as that. And I would say that any bird that is been sold in a petstore comes from a bad situation... I know it's a blanket statement but the only way a petstore can make money selling them is if they buy the babies cheap and the only ones that sell babies cheap are the real bad breeders. The reason I mention this is because I think that, sometimes, no matter how hard we try, the bird's psyche is so fragile that the merest little upset can set them off plucking so, if she doesn't stop or if she stops and starts again despite all the effort and work and planning you put into her life, don't feel that it's your fault because, most likely, it isn't!

[patti]

intersting about the birds in infancy... in this video an avian vet makes the same argument



i know that lily came from the bird mill... i looked into it. i thought that the time i spent with her had 'cured' her of the awful six - nine months she had before coming to me. guess not! but now that i know how fragile she is i can work with it, i guess. try to find a way to stop her before it progresses into a real problem.

[galeriagila]

My God.

I think now that no matter how much I would like to take credit for Rbird's relatively good adjustment... a lot of it was already determined when I got him. As I've said in previous threads, I tracked down the breeder and was "penpals" with her for a while. She was a good, responsible, loving person who in fact felt so sad at giving up her babies that she ceased breeding. Thank you, Veronica, wherever you are, all these years later.

[Pajarita]

Yes, I have heard of many good breeders that stopped breeding because they either realized that they couldn't really place the babies in good homes all the time or because they simply felt terrible about all the homeless birds... And I read of a couple who bred macaws and stopped when they put a camera in their nest and filmed the parents looking for three days for the babies that had been taken away to handfeed and crying all the time. It seems that the only ones that keep on doing it are the bad ones...

[galeriagila]

Oh, heartbreak.

Veronica said she felt like a "slave trader", selling off the tree toddlers who had followed her around like puppies, clumsy and still flightless. She was so happy to hear from me. I may try to track her down, after all these years.