# Feather Picking Due to No Mate?



## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

I have a cockatiel that's 8 yrs old. He's been on a seed diet his whole life and probably isn't getting enough nutrition. He recently started to pluck his feathers. His body and a couple small spots on and under his wing. I have him on Avicalm, Featherrific, and AviVita for the past week. He doesn't really like vegetables but he does eat a bit of lettuce, and a couple peas (only the inside, doesn't like the skin).

Thinking maybe it's his diet, I'm slowly switching him to Harrisons and today, I'll be adding red palm oil to his diet. Hopefully I can get him to eat more greens. I'm hoping that his diet is the source of his feather plucking.

But he's also got weird behavior. Sometimes when I pet him (usually on his back), he'll crouch down a bit and make these funny chirping noises until I stop petting him, then he'll return to his normal tweets. The only thing that comes to mind is that he wants to mate? This is another cause of him feather picking I assume? Except, I don't know how to handle this.

I do play with him for a couple hours everyday. I don't know how to get him to stop picking. He screams everytime he plucks a feather out. I try to distract him when I see him plucking but I can't monitor him 24/7.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

Prodigy said:


> He screams everytime he plucks a feather out.


This behavior is often seen in birds that have giardia infection. I would take him for a vet visit to rule out medical causes behind the plucking.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

> But he's also got weird behavior. Sometimes when I pet him (usually on his back), he'll crouch down a bit and make these funny chirping noises until I stop petting him, then he'll return to his normal tweets. The only thing that comes to mind is that he wants to mate? This is another cause of him feather picking I assume? Except, I don't know how to handle this.


And this sounds like female mating behavior not male. Are you positive you have a male bird? What's happening here is that you're stimulating "him" by petting his back and he's presenting to you because he sees you as his mate. When tiels mate, the male perches on the females back to do so. SO, I would say you have a hormonal bird that may need hormone reduction techniques and a test for giardia just to be sure.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

enigma731 said:


> This behavior is often seen in birds that have giardia infection. I would take him for a vet visit to rule out medical causes behind the plucking.


I would assume that it's natural for all birds to scream in pain from plucking out their own feather. Sometimes he bleeds too. But I will get him checked out.



roxy culver said:


> And this sounds like female mating behavior not male. Are you positive you have a male bird? What's happening here is that you're stimulating "him" by petting his back and he's presenting to you because he sees you as his mate. When tiels mate, the male perches on the females back to do so. SO, I would say you have a hormonal bird that may need hormone reduction techniques and a test for giardia just to be sure.


I'm pretty sure it's a male. There have been no eggs for 8yrs, the vet told me it was a male? Am I missing something here? Haha... It'd be weird for me to find out it's a female after 8 years :blink:... I figured it was what you said about what's happening and wanted to confirm it. I just don't know how to deal with it if it's causing the plucking. I will get it tested for giardia though.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

Prodigy said:


> I would assume that it's natural for all birds to scream in pain from plucking out their own feather. Sometimes he bleeds too. But I will get him checked out.


I'm not sure, but when I had a bird that was screaming while plucking/overpreening, the vet told me that that behavior is often specifcally linked to giardia. The areas that he's plucking are also suggestive of giardiasis. If you post a picture of your bird, we may be able to confirm the sex.


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## vampiric_conure (Jul 8, 2012)

Man. Giardia sucks. Lets hope this little guy can find some relief!


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

Here are some pics. If the bird does have giardia, how would I treat it? Isn't it hard to treat? I thought it was hard to tell if a bird has giardia or not since the feces only shows the organism sometimes but not all the time.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

I'm not the best at visually sexing birds, but that looks like a female to me. Does your bird sing or make heart wings?

It is true that the test for giardia can give false negatives, but it's still probably better than not testing at all. In some birds, it can be difficult to treat, and reinfection can occur, but in others, one course of treatment seems to be successful. I wouldn't jump to conclusions right now -- it's just a good idea to try and rule it out as a potential cause of the plucking.


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## vampiric_conure (Jul 8, 2012)

I was going to say that your fella looks like a hen, too. Gorgeous bird, though!


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

enigma731 said:


> I'm not the best at visually sexing birds, but that looks like a female to me. Does your bird sing or make heart wings?
> 
> It is true that the test for giardia can give false negatives, but it's still probably better than not testing at all. In some birds, it can be difficult to treat, and reinfection can occur, but in others, one course of treatment seems to be successful. I wouldn't jump to conclusions right now -- it's just a good idea to try and rule it out as a potential cause of the plucking.





vampiric_conure said:


> I was going to say that your fella looks like a hen, too. Gorgeous bird, though!


That's so weird... I always thought that female birds lay eggs. I've never seen an egg ever coming from Sammy. The vet even said it was a male ... But then again... only females lower their heads and make weird chirping noises with their tail kind of elevated. This is so weird... I always thought Sammy was a female as well until this past year, it had it's first health case which required me to take it to the vet. It's cloaca was inflamed, it had watery droppings, it picked at it's swollen cloaca which caused bleeding. The vet gave me antibiotics and other medication but she told me Sammy was male even though I thought it was female for the past 7 years until now.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

Female birds only lay eggs if they become hormonally stimulated enough by something in the environment. It's actually good if she hasn't laid eggs, because it's very hard on their bodies for a hen to constantly lay infertile eggs. Now that you know she's female, you should stop petting her on her back, since that is basically telling her that you want to mate with her. You can decrease her hormone levels by giving her 12-14 hours of darkness at night, as well.

It's not unusual for vets to not know how to visually sex a 'tiel. There's lots of different mutations now, and many of them have outdated information, like that only males have colorful cheek patches. Your bird's cheek patches are very big and bright, but this does not mean that she is a male. This also doesn't mean that your vet is inexperienced -- they just may not have any reason to keep up with visual sexing when their more preferred method now seems to be DNA testing.


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## JaimeS (Nov 28, 2011)

Not all females will lay eggs. She certainly looks like a girl. Very pretty!


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## JaimeS (Nov 28, 2011)

Sorry, I was posting at the same time as enigma731.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

definitely a girl... 

shes gorgeous! and not all birds lay eggs, most only do if theyre stimulated to lay. if she hasnt laid, you are doing well


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

That's so weird... Thank you everyone for the information. I'll get Sammy checked out at the vet and hopefully I can find the reason for...her...plucking.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

question, is your vet an avian vet?


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

This is the same bird that mutilated the cloaca, right? If so, that would make me doubly suspicious of giardia. Do keep us updated.


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## birdsoo (Jul 4, 2012)

She is so pretty! It is true that testing for giardia might not be conclusive. I think getting a few samples a few days in a row to get more definite results is recommended. As far as I can remember, it was also recommended the very first dropping early in the morning (though i dont know which one would qualify as such.. Maybe when the bird wakes up??) should be collected.

I know that a lot of avian vets treat the bird for giardia if the birds have the symptoms and there is nothing else that could explain it. Regardless of the negative test results, the bird is put on medication (the most effective one is rodanizole. If it cannout be found, I know they use a couple of others like metronidazole)

The correct dosage is important, though. Even if the bird does have it, an incorrect dosage might not be enough for the bird to recover and a second course of treatment is necessary in some cases for complete recovery. It is a contagious disease, so if you have more than one bird, they might need medication as well.


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

Definitely a girl there..and I also recommend a Giardia test to be safe.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

DallyTsuka said:


> question, is your vet an avian vet?


It's an all around animal clinic but I only ever see one lady and she talks like she knows a lot about birds. I never asked if she was specifically only avian.



enigma731 said:


> This is the same bird that mutilated the cloaca, right? If so, that would make me doubly suspicious of giardia. Do keep us updated.


Yes, same bird. I'll be sure to update.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

Oh, I forgot to mention. When Sammy had the cloaca problem, there were a couple medications prescribed. The first one was in fact metronidazole but the cloaca did not reduce or heal. It started to bleed more but I think that was because Sammy was picking at it. A week later, Sammy was on Baytril. After a week or so, it just disappeared one day back to normal. I assume over night but it was so sudden. About a month later after the cloaca area had feathers and was back to normal, Sammy began plucking body feathers.


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## eduardo (Jan 27, 2012)

When I first got my lutino girl tiel, I noticed she would eat her poo Then I noticed she was overpreening herself and started developing little bald patches under her wings. I also suspected giardia, especially since I saw her eating her poo I took her to the vet and he performed a simple test that was negative. Then he took a more fresh sample of her poo and sent it to a lab for a more accurate test, one that shows if there is giardia to the %99 accuracy. The result was still negative. Anyway, the vet suspected she was going through a very bad molt (which became aparent to me later), and her overpreening was caused by boredom and diet. We have made a few changes in her diet, I got her a tiel friend, and her overpreening has reduced. She still tends to go for those spots under her wings, but keeping her busy helps.
I hope in case of your tiel it's just diet and not giardia.


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

Prodigy said:


> I never asked if she was specifically only avian.


Rather than asking if she is avian certified, I would ask how frequently she sees birds and how long she has been seeing them. Often that's a much better indicator of a vet's competency than whether or not they have the certification. The reason is that the avian certification costs extra money and time in courses, so some vets opt not to get the official piece of paper and just see birds anyway. Obviously this is not always the case, but I am aware of several instances where an un-certified vet actually had more bird expertise than one who had the title. So, as long as you are happy with her care, and she seems to have a lot of experience and confidence in treating birds, I would feel pretty good about it.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

eduardo said:


> When I first got my lutino girl tiel, I noticed she would eat her poo Then I noticed she was overpreening herself and started developing little bald patches under her wings. I also suspected giardia, especially since I saw her eating her poo I took her to the vet and he performed a simple test that was negative. Then he took a more fresh sample of her poo and sent it to a lab for a more accurate test, one that shows if there is giardia to the %99 accuracy. The result was still negative. Anyway, the vet suspected she was going through a very bad molt (which became aparent to me later), and her overpreening was caused by boredom and diet. We have made a few changes in her diet, I got her a tiel friend, and her overpreening has reduced. She still tends to go for those spots under her wings, but keeping her busy helps.
> I hope in case of your tiel it's just diet and not giardia.


I'm hoping it is just a diet and boredom issue as well. Sammy eats it's poop too...


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## vampiric_conure (Jul 8, 2012)

The up side to it being diet and boredom is that it's an easy fix


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

Update: So I sent in the feces yesterday for a test. Today, it came back as negative. The vet was unavailable to talk to at the time. Sammy is fully converted from seeds to pellets. Sammy is still plucking and screaming.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

I spent weeks trying to contact sammy's vet but she's always in surgery. I came in to the clinic and spoke to a different vet. They told me that it could be a psychological problem and that I should get another cockatiel friend. Well that's not really an option for me. I told the vet that Sammy has all the symptoms of giardia. I asked if they can prescribe ronidazole to see if it would help. They said that they only have metronidazole. Sammy is supposed to be on that for 14 days and if there's no improvement, I have to go back to the vet and they said they might just have Sammy on it for longer. Well it's only been a couple days. I'm worried that Sammy will continue to pluck until she's bald


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

From personal; experience I have found that giardia is not the only cause of the type of plucking you are having. Many times an allergic reaction to some ingredient in the diet can also be the cause. When there is an allergic reaction the bird will pluck the feathers to help to relieve the itch and pain. 

Can you think back to specifically when the plucking started and if you had changed the diet or gave a certain thing that within 1-2 days you noticed plucking. You said she had been on a seed diet for years with no issues, until you can determine the cause you might consider going back to the diet she had been used to.


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## Prodigy (Jul 25, 2012)

srtiels said:


> From personal; experience I have found that giardia is not the only cause of the type of plucking you are having. Many times an allergic reaction to some ingredient in the diet can also be the cause. When there is an allergic reaction the bird will pluck the feathers to help to relieve the itch and pain.
> 
> Can you think back to specifically when the plucking started and if you had changed the diet or gave a certain thing that within 1-2 days you noticed plucking. You said she had been on a seed diet for years with no issues, until you can determine the cause you might consider going back to the diet she had been used to.


Oh she had been plucking during the seed diet. I believe this plucking started when her cloaco started to become inflamed. She was picking at it which caused bleeding and she started to pluck her feathers. After her cloaca problem disappeared, she still plucked for a while. I thought it was diet so I changed her diet to harrisons pellets. She's still plucking. I tried Avicalm and Featherrific to see if it would calm her down and stop her but no luck.


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