My bird plucks feathers and is aggressive due to stress. What to do?

Question

My bird keeps plucking and being mean . She transitioned in to doing this when I wad goinh through cancer.. I took here to the vet and said she was healty. What to do ?

Emi Knafo, DVM, DACZM · Accepted Answer

Hello. I’m so sorry you are dealing with feather destructive behavior, but I’m glad your vet said he’s healthy. FDB is extremely frustrating and can have many causes. Illness must be ruled out first by way of a physical exam, blood work, X-rays, fecal tests. If those are all normal, then we usually do a feather and skin biopsy to see if there is an issue in the feathers themselves. After that, we consider the behavior psychological. Since you say this started during your cancer treatments, I suspect this is a stress response in your bird. Birds are extremely social and bond strongly to their person. If you were sick and stressed he likely picked up on that. If you had less time for him, thatvlikely caised him stress as well. Birds also are used to being in flocks and flying miles and miles a day. So just being indoors in a cage is stressful. As you can see, birds have a lot of cause t be stressed and pick feathers! There are many strategies to try but to be honest, once this starts it’s very very hard to stop. Special collars, vests and other things can be worn to prevent plucking. Medications for pain, itching, and antipsychotics can sometimes help. The best thing would be to see your veterinarian again, or seek the help of an avian specialist to work through the possible causes and implement a treatment and management strategy. This will be a long road, but hopefully will be worth it in the end. Good luck!

My bird plucks feathers and is aggressive due to stress. What to do?

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