Hello all!

[Rona]

Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Ben and I currently own a 4 year old senegal named Eep, a 3 year old Timneh African Grey named Mumble, and 2 parakeets with no names.

My wife and I have been trying to fix our senegal's plucking problem, but we can't seem to figure it out so I found this forum while looking for answers. I'll be posting pictures of the environment and of our birds later while seeking knowledge. Nice to meet you all!

[marie83]

Hiya, welcome to the forums.

Has your sennie had a vet check, xrays and testing about the plucking yet? If not thats the first thing to do. Vets reckon only about 30% of plucking is a behavioural issue/habit so get all the medical stuff and nutritional stuff ruled out first if you haven't already.

[Rona]

Yep, we had that done about 3-6 months ago. It wasn't anything wrong with skin or feathers. She was very healthy and weighed the right amount. He thought it may have been hormones, so we gave her 2 injections (seperated by 3 weeks) of hormones. That would mellow her out for a few days, but wouldn't fix the plucking issues.

Right now we're thinking it's environment or boredom. I've ordered a fresh set of toys since hers are a couple months old and we plan on rearranging her out of cage stand and setting up more foraging toys as well.

[Eurycerus]

Wow Nika's (my Senegal) toys don't last that long! :] She chews through pine like nobody's business. Sounds like maybe she doesn't like her toys if they lasted that long, so find out what she likes. I would get a few different perches and probably ten or more toys (you can get bulk toys parts and string them up yourself, which also allows you to pick the toy parts you know your parrot likes) and rotate everything once a week to prevent boredom. I need to purchase more perches myself but they're expensive. :/ Nika has a window view during the day (she has a nice safe spot for nighttime sleeping) and that can be stimulating too. I play the radio but some more sophisticated people can play cartoons or other fun TV for their parrots.

I do pretty simply foraging thus far. A new toy I made her has coconut parts that come together like a clam shell and I jam twisted up brown paper, some with a treat (very tiny but still enticing, also not the treats I use when she's outside of the cage) and some without inside of it. I also cut up paper towel rolls and also put twisted up brown paper inside (some with a treat and some not) and put those on the bottom of the cage. Another good idea I heard is to get many (the lady I talked to had seven) small stainless steel bowls that she separates out the pellets of the day into and scatters them around the cage everyday. You could also mix in cleaned, empty pistachio shells so that it's hard to find the pellets. In addition you can cover the food bowl with brown paper, or paper towel so that they have to tear through it to get to the food. Initially make a small slit and poke food through so that they can see that there's food underneath.

Also consider her diet. There're quite a few threads about diet and you can look at ways to improve that.

[Grey_Moon]

Not to bring the vet thing up again but if they just tested her skin and weighed her that leaves a lot of room for things to be missed.

I would take her back, do x-rays and a complete panel of bloodwork (CBC and biochemistry) to check organ function and nutrient levels.

75% of the time plucking has a physical (disease, injury, imbalance or malnutrition) cause. It is rarely just hormones or boredom or stress.

[marie83]

Not to bring the vet thing up again but if they just tested her skin and weighed her that leaves a lot of room for things to be missed.

I would take her back, do x-rays and a complete panel of bloodwork (CBC and biochemistry) to check organ function and nutrient levels.

75% of the time plucking has a physical (disease, injury, imbalance or malnutrition) cause. It is rarely just hormones or boredom or stress.

+1

A skin and feather exam is not enough. Sometimes these things take time to diagnose. My two have been screaming when preening and losing feather under their wings since last November but we still haven't exhausted possible medical causes..... If your vet is so quick to say it is a behaviour issue - change vets.
My birds first vet did basic bloods and an x-ray, nothing more, before telling me they had psychological issues. My new vet did a full routine/bonding/behaviour/diet questionaire and decided its very unlikely to be a psychological issue.

[Rona]

I know they did bloodwork on her (that's actually how we found out it was a her) and that was fine, but I don't think x-ray's were done. TBH I think it's time for another visit anyway, just to make sure it's not physical issues.

Although now that I think about it, since my wife took her most of the time, they did an x-ray when she had a sinus infection last January/February, along with the bloodwork and full exam, but being as that is starting to approach a year ago, it's probably time for another physical.

Also, her diet right now is a mix between Harrison Pellets, zupreme pellets (though we try to keep her off those), and she gets a nutriberry treat once a day while we interact with her after work.

Thanks so much for the tips!

[marie83]

Heres a link I found useful when mine started with the picking/feather loss

http://www.aviannetwork.com/articles/vettests.htm

[Rona]

If you all are curious this is my avian vet: http://www.birdsandexotics.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=58

Dr. Jose is very good and cares a lot about the birds he treats (he's seen all of my birds and told me a lot of things to change, and saved my grey from a staph infection) so I trust him. Anyone else go to him?

[Eurycerus]

75% of the time plucking has a physical (disease, injury, imbalance or malnutrition) cause. It is rarely just hormones or boredom or stress.

I was wondering where the citation was for this? I'm on a facebook discussion group and some of the Senegals have plucking problems and I wanted to link them to the source so that they would take it seriously instead of dismissing the idea that generally it's not psychological.