Molting or plucking?

[Lwalker]

Hello
My green-cheek is 9 months old today and seems happy and well socialized. He eats well and gets a variety of foods to supplement pellets. Although I work, he still gets out one hour in the morning and three hours at night. In the past two days I have noticed small chest feathers in his water dish and now he has a small grey horizontal patch on his chest that is all downy where it should be red and yellow. He has been preening but also stretching and seems happy. He is scratching his head a bit too. He just finished a head molt. Could this still be molting and should I wait a bit or get him to a vet? He is my first GCC and my cockateil never had these patches.any advice is appreciated.

[Wolf]

I am not experienced enough to say one way or the other without seeing the bird or at least a couple of good pictures showing the condition of the feathers in that area and perhaps of the whole bird to see if it is showing the beginnings of plucking. But based on my limited knowledge of this species of parrot it does sound as if it just might be plucking.

If it is plucking then the bird requires more time with you when you are home and it needs to be shown how to use various types of toys, such as those for chewing up, foraging toys and generally things to keep its mind busy while you are not there for it. GCCs are very much the epitome of the Velcro bird and their favorite thing in the whole world is to be on you.

[seagoatdeb]

Green cheeks do have their juvenille moult this young and with the increased seasonal light may even do a complete moult. It is very rare for a young conure like this to pluck, would not even worry about that at this point. If you notice more patches that seem bare than bring him to a vet. Besides plucking he coud have something else. But it is most likely moulting. Cockatiels mouting is very different from conures, Cockateils can breed almost all year and they moult differently than a lot of parrots. Young conures have not read the books on moulting and will moult sometimes so that there is no where you can find a place on their body that is not itchy pin feathers.

[Wolf]

I am pretty much in agreement with you on this, seagoatdeb, but my concern is that when moulting even with the ones that look the rattiest and most moth eaten there are usually not any bare spots. Yes the bird should be too young for this to be a plucking issue, but it is not something that can just be ruled out as there have been birds younger than this that have plucked. If the bird is plucking it would, indeed, be most likely that it is due to a medical reason or even a food allergy but it could be behavioral if the bird is not receiving the amount of interaction and mental stimulation that it needs. The only reason that I did not suggest a vet visit right off was that the bird was just at the vets and if the vet thought it was medical he should have said something and in fact should have said something about it regardless of why he/ she thought this was occurring. Of course that is just my opinion.

[Lwalker]

Thanks so much for your thoughts. I will keep an eye on it and also see if I can get him more toys to "destroy" and keep him active. I showed him how to rip up paper last night and he was at is for 45 minutes. There aren't any avian vets in my town but I am getting him used to a travel carry case and will find a vet for a health check

[Pajarita]

GCCs have their juvenile molt between 5 and 7 months of age so, at 9 months, he should have been done with it even if he was on the 'late' side. Now, if you see a patch of down feathers, he is plucking -no two ways about it! Sometimes, when they are molting (this is not the time of the year for him to be molting, either), you can see a semi-loose down feather sticking out between two contours (the little round feathers that cover the bird's body) but you never see an actual spot where all you see is down feathers and, unless I misunderstood, this is what you described. So, if you do, it means that he plucked all the contour feathers in it - and the chest is one of the most common areas for a bird to start plucking (the legs and under the wings are the other two so check there, too, just in case). If you add the fact that you can see a 'patch' of down and the location of it, unless he was rubbing his chest against something abrasive that 'pulled' his feathers out, there is no other explanation than the one that he plucked them himself.

Now, it could be his age because, at 9 months, he could be going through puberty. If you work full time and let him out at night, he has been living in a breeding schedule since he was a baby and, IF you free-feed pellets you have the added soy (it has estrogenic side effects) and the high protein factors that tells the bird is breeding season. GCCs are mainly fruit eaters in the wild and are a highly opportunistic species (so much so that different colonies breed at different months of the year due to the food availability in each zone) so free-feeding high protein does not only end up damaging their liver and kidneys, it also makes them hormonal. The other possibility is that he is suffering from anxiety from been alone all day long. GCCs are EXTREMELY needy little birds... personally, I think they are as bad as cockatoos because they require an inordinate amount of time on their humans as well as constant company.

[seagoatdeb]

If you can show us a picture where we can see that spot it would help us. A patch where some feathers are mouting and a downy patch or bare patch are all different things. My daughter GGC just did a full moult right after his juvenile moult so I am positive it can happen. Both my baby Meyers did a full moult instead of a juvenille moult and so did my daughters Meyers. That is just too much coincidence for me. The weather has been so strange this year that I wonder if that can be affecting baby bird moults. Our weather is so warm right now it is like summer. our winter was very warm and although we did get some snow that stuck for weeks which is rare, we never usually have enough humidity for that much moisture, it never got very cold this winter just hovered at the freezing mark and lots of sunny days.

I agree that the vet should have said something, as Wolf said, but i could not find where you said a vet had checked him.There are vets out there that say they are avaian but also do dogs cats etc, so it is important to have a vet that is only an avian vet if you do need to go get it looked at. Where I live, there is not a single "real" Avian vet. I have to travel to get to one.

Also GGC are very needy parrots, just as Pajarita says. They are great parrots, so acrobatic and such funny antics, but I now only have Pois, they are much more independant and will play when alone, and arent as needy, mind you they are more stubborn.

[Pajarita]

Yes, I agree that a picture would help a lot but the OP talks about "a small grey horizontal patch on his chest that is all downy where it should be red and yellow" and, in my personal opinion, that could not be caused by any kind of molt, juvenile, partial, full or even a soft one. At least, not in a GCC -it could happen to a psittacula though. A French molt would do it but then, the feather loss would be all over the body and not in just one spot.

[Lwalker]

I was finally able to get a good picture but I cant upload it to the site . There a few downy feathers sticking out on his back too. He gets fruit and veg for breakfast and dinner and pellets are available all day. I Whenever I am home he is out but sometimes when I go out of his sight, he calls and calls for me. When he sees me he is quite happy and content to climb all over the outside and the top of his cage. If anyone has advice on how to post a picture from my phone, let me know. He (or maybe she) has not seen a vet yet but I have found one in the next city over.

[Lwalker]

Had to really reduce this but hope it enough to see.