Understanding the dynamics of bird breeding

Birds used in breeding programs are typically wild caught or parent raised.  They are  kept wild and do not make good pets.  They usually fear human contact or prefer little human contact and have all the natural instincts they would posess in the wild.

They are usually used in breeding as they have the natural instinct, drive and are  taught by the parents  the dynamics of breeding including how to nurture their young and how to look after each other during brooding.

Pet birds on the other hand are usually removed from their parents before their eyes are open and imprinted on human handlers.  They have not been taught how to raise young or how to feed their mate during breeding season and do not have the same natural drives and instincts. 

 This does not mean that some don’t get hormonal urges, but these are usually seasonal and typically milder in nature that their breeding cousins and can be controlled somewhat with a few behaviour modifications. 

What we have found is most pet birds, when placed into a breeding program are not very successful breeders.  They don’t understand the dynamics, have a higher rate of killing their mates or being killed or having their beaks ripped off  or other injuries(this is fairly common even with normal breeders but much higher in pet/breeding). 

Breeding is extremely stressful on even healthy birds but it is also the time when many birds shed dormant but deadly viruses which may have been remained dormant their entire lives.  There is a much higher rate of illnesses found in breeding aviaries compared to a pet home.  Much of this is brought on my the stress associated with breeding.

Pet birds usually don’t understand the physical aspects of breeding, courtship and typically don’t produce viable eggs .  They also have a much higher rate of killing their own babies as they don’t understand the parenting aspect as they were not taught if they are able to produce viable eggs.  They have been known to eat their young.

But, what typically does happen with birds in general is when they find a mate, they tend to mate for life and will protect the mate so they revert back to a more wild nature to an extent where they don’t want to be handled by people any longer, they only want their mate and will protect the mate by attacking anyone that they fear will harm their relationship.   Their homonal instincts are now much stronger.  The breeders encourage this by not handling them at all, not talking to them and no toys so they learn that the only thing left for them is to breed.  Breeders understand that in order to successfully breed, they need to regain most of their wild tendancies back.   They leave them strictly with a mate and breeding box for a number of years.  They typically end up plucking themselves bald and/or get plucked by their mate from all the stress.

The majority of breeders once they realize that this particular bird will not successfully breed, which usually occurs after several years of unsuccessful attempts to produce viable eggs,   usually try to sell them to someone again as a pet. Usually for a reduced price as they are now damaged goods and typically they sell them to someone without the knowledge or ability to care for it properly.  These people think they are getting a deal with the cheaper price.  Usually it is someone without the skills or this particular knowledge, so are setting them up for failure.  In some cases they go off to another unsuspecting breeder.   They no longer want the burden or expenses for housing, feeding and space so they can make room for other breeders.  

What is left of the bird?  He no longer wants human interaction as it once did  as it has now become fearful of humans and touch.  It is usually badly plucked with little hope of regaining its feathers due to all the stress of trying to breed and now gets hormonal with more frequency.  It is no longer a pet or breeder if he survived the ordeal at all.

These birds are now very messed up.  They are much harder to manage and typically end up in rescues.  If they are lucky they will get an experienced behaviourist that may be able to help them to adjust to life with humans again.  Otherwise they end up in a cage somewhere where they live a fearful life not wanting interaction, unloved and very stressed.

Presently we have 6 such birds at the rescue and we are finding our own frustration in trying to reintegrate them into a place that would be best suited to them.  We do work towards behaviour modifications to help them re-adjust back to life with people.  We just hope some peeople will read this and realize the long term results of wanting their parrot to breed.

My phone rings off the wall every year at this time by people who are either fed up or are panicked about their parrots behaviour this time of year.

It is all a natural reaction to spring.  Which is breeding season for most animals including parrots.

We need to provide for our pets and our own sanity to make it through the two months of raging hormones.

Here are a list of things that should help.

- Clip the birds wings.  If he is attacking and biting clipping the wings will stop 90% of your trouble as you will have to approach him in order to get bit.  It also helps to ease off some of the aggressive tendencies.

- Bring in lots of toys.  This should help keep your wood furniture and door moldings safe.  Parrots chew very heavily this time of the year.  By providing plenty of toys it should help to keep their little beaks busy and ease off on the furniture chewing.

- Keep them caged longer, if they are aggressive and grumpy, there is no reason to get your self injured.  Spend time with him by playing games through the bars of the cage.

- Get rid of hormone inducing toys.  Happy huts, fuzzy buddies, nesting materials etc

- Ignore the loud screaming.  I know it is a pain but it will end shortly.  You don’t want to acknowledge the screaming as it only leads to reinforcement.

- Keep petting to the top of the head.  If the parrot starts panting, stop all petting.

- If the parrot starts laying eggs, start a calcium supplement and get rid of hormone inducing toys.

- Some plucking can take place this time of year also.  Give plenty of baths and provide preening type toys.

If will take some patience and perseverance but it does get better………well that is until next spring!

Is it time to give up your parrot?

Sometimes we get a pet and for what ever reason it does not fit with the family, or stresses get in the way that stop  us from being able to give it the life we would like it to have.   Many people believe in a commitment for life which is honorable but if the birds needs are not being met is it really fair to the bird?  Some times loving them is not enough.   I have compiled a list of things to look for , and if noticed, then you  should consider giving up your parrot.

• You can’t afford to look after it anymore or provide a good diet for it
• You aren’t able to regularly maintain it  yourself or with a vet to keeps it’s nails and beak trimmed.
• You are afraid of the bird
• You move it into the back of the house or into the basement to keep it quiet
• You cover it just to keep it quiet
• You frequently leave it alone for long periods of time
• Your life has become too busy to spend daily time with it
• You never take it out of it’s cage or spend time with it
• You can’t afford to keep buying toys or to provide a proper cage
• You or a family member walk by and kick the cage
• You or a family member are constantly yelling at it
• The parrot is causing problems with your family
• You or your family members are stressed by your parrot. This isn’t good for either of your well being.
• If you clean the cage less than once a week
• If you are afraid of someone seeing it due to the fact that it is a plucker or a mutilator (don’t be afraid to call us we will help with these issues)
• If you don’t know how to handle it, or are afraid to go near it

Any of these can be extremely hard on a parrot and some can be equally as hard on family member.  They typically lead to behaviour problems and psychological problems including depression, plucking, mutilating and screaming.  Even though we may love the parrot, we need to look after its best interests and sometimes that would be a new environment where he will get the attention and affection and care that could be lacking due to life influences in the home.  We can still love them but want a better life for them than we are able to offer.

We have a tendency to want to fix things.  It’s in our nature to want to help and make things better.   However’, in many instances we end up causing more harm than good.

Even what we believe can be harmless medications on humans and other animals can have adverse affects on birds.  Their physiology is so very different than ours and other animals.  Medications that may help a child, dog or cat, might end up killing your parrot or making it much worse.

Over the counter treatments, as an example, polysporin and cortisone creams are designed for humans in mind, and the dosages are based on human use.   Most people think that it is harmless, as you are only putting  it on your skin.   At the very least it would have to be diluted many times to make it safe for a parrot, if in fact it is safe at all!  The chemicals absorb into the skin and find their way into the organs of the birds.  Given at full strength, these drugs could introduce toxic levels into the birds blood stream and organs.

This also applies to herbal treatments and “all natural” products.  Most of these type of natural treatments have not even been studied on humans, never mind other animals.  Some herbs can be quite potent as was the case with Dong.  The dosages are also designed for human consumption and in most cases have not been studied for a birds physiology. Even if it has been tried by someone else and didn’t seem to hurt the bird, no testing was done on internal organs to see how the treatment affected them’in the long run.

In Dong’s case, Chinese herbs were used as a means of treating a mutilated wing.  What ended up happening to Dong is her wing ended up mummified and badly infected.   The flesh was hardened and dried out.  The bones were exposed, which created a breeding ground for infection.  One of the herbs was probably for pain relief.  Dong removed the bone from her wing, probably because she did not feel the pain that she was causing herself!   Many different bacteria were found in her wing, including ecoli.  Her kidney function was 3 times normal due to the introduction of the chemicals into her blood stream. She had to have her wing amputated and was treated with antibiotics.  She eventually died after valiant efforts to save her. You can read her story on this blog as well.

Even though the family that kept Dong were knowledgeable about herbs and their uses, they did not know what affects they would have on Dong.  The family wanted to save money by treating with home remedies, which instead cost Dong her life.

It does cost money to take your parrots to the vet.  A single visit and advice on treatment will cost somewhere in the range of $40- $90, for good and sound advice about medicating your parrot.  It is definitely money well spent.  Some vets will answer single questions over the phone about medications at no charge but don’t count on it. 

If your bird is mutilating, it is important to get it into the vet for testing and treatment to make sure the wound is not infected and to determine any secondary casues.  In the early stages an antibiotic regimen could help.

Take the bird to the vets at the first sign of trouble, don’t wait until it gets worse.  If you start treatments early, the treatment will be less invasive to the bird and will probably end up saving you money.  We all know that birds will not show signs of illness until they can no longer hold themselves up.  The first sign of trouble is usually an indication that the problem have already bypassed the stage where they can be easily handled.  Putting a collar on the bird does not treat the root cause.

Even if you believe that stress is the factor that started the mutilating, there is in most cases a secondary, underlying issue also.  The stress is just the catalyst that started the behaviour.

Seeking advice from friends and what they have tried is not the same as getting good advice from your vet.  Many prefer home remedies for the money saving aspect.  But have these been studied in a clinical setting?  Is this just one person’s opinion? Is it really worth taking a chance?  Googling articles on herbs is not the answer.  There are many self proclaimed experts out there.

I am not an expert on medicating parrots and the only advice I can give you is;  don’t use anything, no matter how harmless you believe it is, until you have asked your vet! 

It’s too late for Dong, don’t let it be too late for your precious pet parrot!

Having worked with many many feather pluckers, we have learned quite a lot over the years. Most birds will feather up with a change to a new environment alone. Most plucking issues that are behavioural related are due to boredom, stress and hormones. Medical issues are a different situation and of course the bird would need to be tested and treated to determine if the issue is medical or behavioural.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your parrot is to change its environment. Even within your own home. If he is kept in the family room, try moving him to the kitchen and see if you notice a difference after a couple of months. Change his toys as well at this time. This alone can usually solve the problem. The plucking started for a reason which is causing some sort of stress to your bird. First try increasing his baths, playtime and out of cage time. Try to determine the cause of the plucking. Was something new introduced to the home. A baby? A dog? Even the paint on the walls! Something is causing stress. See if it is something we can change that will help the parrot overcome the plucking. If not it may be time to consider placing him with a friend or giving him up to a new home as sad at that may be but as a last resort if you feel your parrot is just not happy or fearful in your surroundings.

Those that are plucked to the down and not bald have the best chance of recovering their feathers on their own without the use of collars, medications or nasty surgeries. Those that are bald have less success in becoming feathered. This is usually due to damaged follicles.

Different treatments options include:

Antidepressants – As with most medical professions, doctors, including vets are trained to use medications and surgeries to cure problems. They don’t tend to be well versed in the behavioural aspect of parrot care and their needs. We have had many birds come in using antidepressants for feather plucking and everyone of them has been removed from the use. All but one has feathered up completely. The only one who did not was totally bald with the exception of her head. She does have new growth and has maintained a tail and wing feathers for several years now. All without the use of anything other than behaviour changes.

Collars – I refuse to collar a bird unless it is a mutilator. I feel that they add to depression and believe that even a bald bird can be a happy, healthy pet if their needs are being met. The habit of feather plucking can be much like a human that bites their nails. It does form a habit and habits can be hard to break. Does that mean that the bird can not be bald AND happy? I have seen birds become very ill from the use of collars and become depressed. I have also seen birds develop fevers from the use of collars. I have never seen a bird stop plucking because a collar was used. As soon as the bird gets upset again or hormonal, they tend to pull their feathers out all over again, creating a viscious cycle.

Surgeries – I can’t for the life of me think why anyone would want to torture a bird in such a manner. To painfully pull out a birds feathers to see if new ones will grow in! This surgery has been know to kill birds, cause phobias, excruciating pain for weeks after the surgery, not to mention the high cost of such a surgery! Anytime we put a bird under anesthesia it is taking a great risk in losing its life. More than likely the bird would have feathered up on its own had behaviour changes been made or enough time given to allow for those changes to take effect. Our worst case of phobia was caused by this same surgery that the owners had tried in hopes of helping their beloved pet. To top it off the surgery was unsuccessful. The bird continued to pluck and was now an extreme phobic due to the surgery. He was not phobic prior to the surgery. Many people who have been here know Gulliver and have seen the dramatic changes in him and know he is fully feathered now and that is strictly due to behaviour modification. His phobia’s are also mostly under control. He has maintained his feathers for over 6 years now. I have heard several sad stories from people that lost their birds including a hyacinthe macaw because of this unnecessary surgery! It is a shame that vetrinarians would use this as a means of curing feather plucking as the bird most likely would have feathered up without it given a change in environment and behaviours. The only time this surgery would be necessary would be for ingrown or malformed feathers or broken blood feathers.

I just did a count of all the parrots that are here today that were plucking their feathers when they arrived here. We have 10 parrots that all arrived here as feather pluckers to varying degrees and 7 of those are now fully feathered without the use of drugs, collars or surgery. All have maintained their feathers and have not reverted to plucking again. Some for several years now! The three that are not feathered are all completely bald and have been diagnosed with follicle damage. Two of the three have more feathers now than when they arrived and have maintained their feathers for several years now. These numbers have been much greater over the years. We have also had the same success with 4 mutilators we have worked with. Three have stopped mutilating completely and have regrown their feathers with only one that continued to mutilate. He was adopted by a vet.

I do hope that this can help you make proper choices for you parrot without putting undo hardship on your bird where the results can be achieved through patience, understanding and observation. If you have a plucker and would like additional advice, please feel free to write me.

It is a very common problem with birds and probably as many causes as there are pluckers!

There are some known issues that can cause plucking and some birds can be helped. However there are those that continue to pluck although everything has been tried. I am going to try and cover as much information as I can here to help those that can be helped as well as my own personal thoughts on those that can’t be helped.

If your bird recently started to pluck, the first thing to do is have the bird vet checked to determine if any health issues are causing the plucking. Sometimes treatment alone can help.

The next step would be to determine to the best of your ability the whens, hows, wheres and whys the plucking may have started in the first place. If you can determine this then changes in that environment may help.

Some reasons birds plucks (this is only a partial list):

• Diet
• Lack of Toys
• Allergies
• Too Small of a cage
• Illness
• Change in environment
• Boredom
• Stress
• Something added to the area that may appear scary to the bird
• New Baby/person in home
• Vitamin Deficiency
• Change in routine
• New furniture/changes in the environment
• New Bird in the home
• Someone in the home teasing the bird
• Loss of mate/favorte person
• Lack of Sleep
• Extended alone time
• One bird plucking another (usually breeders)
• Hormones
• Parasites
• Thyroid
• Lack of Bathing

As you can see the list is large and still incomplete but these things should be looked at and considered when trying to determine the reason your bird may be plucking.

The best way to work with this list is to determine if any of these things have happened or are happening and then make any appropriate changes where possible. If the bird continues to pluck, move on to something else until all options have been exhausted.

Once a bird does pluck, it can very easily turn into a habit. Habits are difficult to break but not impossible. Some times a change in environment is enough to stop the plucking. Providing preening toys can also help. Preening toys are a toy that can simulate a feather or simulate the feeling they would get by plucking their feathers. Toys made of string, straws, newspaper etc. make good preening toys and the birds can pull, snip and shred them which should help to preoccupy them and keep them away from their own feathers.

I should also point out here that there are a couple different types of plucking:

Snipping/Barbering – is where the bird would chew or remove pieces of the feather. In my experience I see this as more common in hormonal plucking but can be anything else also. You can tell a snipper as the feather ends would be v-shaped where the bird has bitten off the piece of feather. Some birds snip until all the feather is removed. Some only snip the ends of the feathers.

Plucking – Some birds will suddenly become totally bald at a moments notice. Some pluck certain areas only ie neck, back, legs, breast or under the wing. Some only pluck to the down leaving the downy feathers. Some pluck to total baldness.

Mutilating – This is the extreme end of plucking when the bird actually chews at their skin causing lesions and bleeding. It should not be confused with chewing a blood feather where a sign of blood can be seen.

Before we go on to how to stop feather plucking I feel that I would like to add my own personal two cents here as I do not believe in treating birds in the manners listed below for several reasons (with the exception of mutilating). First what I feel is more important is to find the cause. In the event that all options are exhausted and no cause can be found, I feel it is more important to make sure the bird is happy, healthy, eating well and is well adjusted. I personally feel that as long as those issues are met the feathers may return on their own. If not as long as the birds is happy and healthy and birds physical appearance is very far down on my list of important issues.

Some people just can’t deal with having a bird that does not look perfect. I would like to say that a bird can be both happy and bald!

Care for pluckers

There are several options that can be used for plucking birds but each does come with their own set of dangers. The trauma experienced by wearing these appliances can be even more detrimental than having a plucking bird.

Collars

Collars are sometimes used to treat feather pluckers by placing the collar around the birds neck which stops them from reaching the feathers thus stopping the plucking. However birds do tend to become depressed while in their collars. Some have been known to get high fevers as well. Another thing that should be watched for are ingrown feathers. If the collars are not removed for periods of time the feathers can become ingrown causing pain and infections. Birds in collars must be watched carefully to ensure they are eating and can still move around without difficulty.

Another form of collar would be a sock with the toes cut out that would be placed around the neck. This would be much easier on the bird but also has its concerns. Watch that the sock is always loose around the neck and that any loose threads are removed. Socks that get wet tend to tighten so care must be taken to ensure that it is always loose. Some of the pulled threads can also tighen the sock around the neck so great care should be taken to ensure this does not happen. Ingrown hairs are another concern as is making sure the bird does not get caught on something that could cause strangulation

Vests/Flight Suites – Bird vests/flight suits are something that have also been tried. The problem with manufactured vests are the birds inability to defecate. The excrement is caught in the suit requiring regular cleaning and then cleaning of the birds vent. Again concerns of ingrown hairs unless the flight suit removed regularly.

Pluck No More – is a product by King’s Cages. We have not had any success with this product but have heard of others that have. One word of advice, make sure to follow the instructions exactly as the bottle asks including the use of distilled water.

The stress level of the bird wearing any of the above items will be much greater as it is not natural for them to wear anything over their feathers or be restricted.

We have had about a 70% success rate in helping pluckers over come their problems just by changes in their environment, ensure proper dietary care and lots of out of cage time.