Severe Macaw

[beakfreak1972]

Hi All, new poster here! I have a 1 1/2 year old Severe Macaw. For the last couple of days shes been almost constantly flicking her wings and shivering (it's not cold at all). Shes also pulling out her feathers. I've tried spraying her with Bird Bath Spray. It seemed to work at first but not now. Any idea what is wrong with her?

[Wolf]

There is no way that anyone can truthfully answer you question except to guess. Normally shivering when not cold is either intense stress/fear or illness. So I would start by getting your bird in to see the vet right away, not in several days, right away.

[beakfreak1972]

Thanks wolf. What's weird is that once she is outside she stops.

[Wolf]

What when outside of cage or what? Can you give more information on what she is doing? Are her eyes pinned? Where is she looking? Are there new toys or things in the cage

[Pajarita]

Wing flicking is almost always associated with a bad diet or intense stress, same as plucking, while the shaking could be from disease or stress so I would start with an avian vet complete physical (she is too young to be showing these symptoms even if she's had a bad diet all along) but I would also do a very thorough and objective re-evaluation of everything: housing, diet, light schedule, routines, out of time cage, flight schedule, artificial light quality, etc. as well as what one would normally consider 'water under the bridge' but which, to a parrot, it's not -things like weaning method and time (was it abundance or not, how many weeks it took, at what age was started), hand-feeding method (syringe, pipette, crop needle, spoon?), at what age was she pulled from the nest, whether she was shipped as a tiny baby or lived with the breeder until she went to your house, exposure to strange people while a baby, allowed to fledge properly or not, etc.