Diet is Key for Healthy Feathers in Pet Parrots

And here we are now a full year later--again in full blown molting.  Ollie just moves now and a feather softly falls out. Feathers that are perfectly formed....not broken or severely damaged.

I am SO relieved this year is totally different from last year and all those years before.  In those dreaded molting seasons of the past, his old feathers would not just fall out.  First of all, whatever old feathers had remained on his body were usually damaged.  Plus the new feathers would break as he was grooming the protective keratin off the shaft. Or he would be itching so badly and act so agitated, he would literally be  aggressively attacking both the feathers and his skin.

He was miserable.  And so were we.

So years ago, the vet decided he needed to be put on an anti-psychotic medication for his agitation.  It made him pretty placid (and sleepy) most of the day but, as it wore off, his agitation resumed. So, while it may have seemed on the surface that the medication was helping reduce his agitated behavior, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something else going on...some underlying thing that was causing Ollie to itch and attack his skin and feathers with such fervor.

Things got SO incredibly bad in spring and summer of 2017 we literally reached the end of our rope.  The nonstop agitation, nonstop eardrum splitting screaming and his total inability to ever just relax turned my sweet parrot into an unrecognizable creature.  His hormones went totally wild.  All he wanted to do was have sex. He wouldn't eat and barely slept. The look in his eye was not that of the Ollie I knew but that of a wild creature in extreme discomfort and literally on the verge of total insanity.

We had two choices.  Either rehome him with avian experts who could figure out what to do with him...or figure out this complex issue ourselves and resolve it without losing our minds in the process. 

Initially, we began the rehoming process. What we discovered, however, was the financial surprise of rehoming.  Our local avian shelter required we had extensive (and expensive) blood tests to confirm he didn't carry any diseases.  The other route was to ship him to the sanctuary in Oklahoma where experts in Eclectus were located and were willing to work with him and keep him there until and if we decided to bring him back home.  That seemed the better option for us, although the entire situation was breaking my heart.

The first thing we needed to do was to slowly wean Ollie off the anti-psychotic medication.  That process increased his agitation temporarily since he was basically going through withdrawal.  But he made it through in a few weeks and was then ready to leave us.

What happened next was pure karma.

Before we could ship him, the soaring summer temps needed to drop significantly.  So, we had to wait to purchase our flight ticket and get the carrier sent here.  While we were waiting for that to happen, I decided to try some other ideas.

Like all pet bird owners, we had been giving Ollie treats from our meals since that tended to distract and quiet him down.  And we also gave him tons of good natural foods--including things like fresh corn on the cob.  We tend to eat pretty healthy food but didn't realize that many of those "healthy" foods still contained added vitamins, preservatives and other surprises.

For a while I had noticed that Ollie seemed more itchy after he had feasted on fresh corn...or popcorn.  And that agitation seemed to increase if he also had been given treats of corn chips, tacos and other things that I later discovered were made with corn oil.  So I decided to eliminate ALL corn from his diet.  And that is when everything started to change.

More to report in the next post.....stay tuned!

A New Beginning: Feather Destructive Behavior

My silence on this blog was unintentional.  I just didn't exactly know how to talk about what we were experiencing with our crazy male Red Sided Eclectus parrot over the past 18 months.  He has almost been rehomed. Twice.

Many of my followers and friends know that life with a parrot can be challenging, but life with a feather destructive bird can be over-the-top impossible.  There are SO many reasons why a bird can begin and continue this activity, even the avian experts and vets cannot make a definite call on why an individual bird will exhibit feather destructive behavior while another bird in the very same flock will not.  The reasons range from behavioral and intelligence to environment and nutrition. And everything in between...and in combinations. Which change with the seasons, emotions...and life circumstances that are sometimes beyond our control.

I will tell you one thing everyone DOES agree on.  Feather destructive behavior is difficult to resolve.  Most people give up before making even one tiny bit of progress because every tiny step forward usually results in several leaps backwards.  And those backward leaps can be literal ones resulting in accidents and even death.

Birds are designed to fly and be able to land and stand on unstable surfaces that require skillful balance.  Without feathers, a bird has very poor balance and no ability to escape danger or correct a fall.  Every time a bird gets hurt, he is stressed and in pain or discomfort. This alone can initiate or exacerbate feather destructive acts because there is a chemical release in their brains whenever they purposefully perform these behaviors.  It then becomes a habit and way to numb bad sensations.  Its like asking a heroin addict to stop injecting the drug that they crave...except parrots are like human toddlers. And we all know how easy it is to reason with a toddler when they want something.

And then there is the frustration because he can't fly.  Which can lead to screaming. Plus the endless feather replacement which has GOT to cause nutritional cravings, as well as just the general discomfort of molting.

So while we DO know the WHEN and WHY Ollie started showing signs of feather destruction, we couldn't figure out why he allowed his feathers to grow at times and totally attacked them without warning at other times.  And why he began breaking off his wing and tail feathers which are ESSENTIAL for balance and flight...and safety. 

My husband saw this as a losing situation and chose rehoming as the only solution to resolve OUR stress and inability to resolve the problem. And trust me, there were times, I agreed.  If the temps hadn't soared to 95+ last summer, Ollie would have been flown to a bird sanctuary in Oklahoma.  But while we waited for the temps to drop, I decided to try some different approaches to help reduce the craziness.

And guess what.....
Something worked.

My next blog post will fill you in on what had led us to us becoming so desperate....stay tuned....