PBFD or plucking

[Stormcloud]

Nadia, he looks like a happy and well adjusted bird. I'll have a look at the local flock of Cockies of which I know some have PBFD and I'll post back then. Beak looks OK. Under his wings looks OK and this is one of the first areas to completely lose feathers if they have PBFD. Please remember though that any thoughts from Mercedez & I are no substitute for good advice and actual testing from a qualified Avian Vet.

 

[komodeno]

Yes he is happy but i just feel guilty about his feather condition. I somehow feel that he is doing this because i have change his diet completely.He was loved but fed seeds mix and eggs with honey (almost every morning)
Now he is eating eggs once or twice a week,his food has very little seed mix and is 90% pellets.He gets fruits,veggies and pasta but he is ready to kill for a seed!
Hope he will adjust.I'm seeing positive signs.The naked part is getting smaller and i hope will hold it that way.It may take longer for him to stop barbering but looking a bit scruffy is much better then naked
I'm planing to get avicalm and feathereific -can you tell me if they are effective.
I will be ordering them all the way from US and need to get some reviews.
I know there is no guarantee bit at least i will know how people feel about it and what results they get.


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[Stormcloud]

Had a look at the local birds last night with PBFD. One of the things I noticed about their feathers is that they become partially transparent...like they've lost some of the pigmentation. They also look dirtier, like they need a good scrub. I would drop Goofies pellet content down to about 70% of his diet. Reintroduce a bit more seed or some cooked rice into his diet. More veggies and fruit as well to make up the difference. If you have 90% pellets plus vitamins on top of this then my guess is that he may be getting to much nutrition in the way of protein, vitamins and minerals. The cooked rice will help with giving his kidneys and liver a flush and assist with removing excess protein and vitamins. I think by heading down this path you'll probably find that his feather quality will improve after his next moult. Like I said, you can give them too much of a good thing.

 

[JAM]

Having done quite a bit of research when I had my scare with my own lorikeet M-Star and went through weeks of stress wondering whether she had it and had potentially infected the rest of the flock, your FID looks like it could be more of a plucking situation than PFBD related.
When the feathers grow back with PBFD, they grow back damaged and do not form properly. I believe that cockies especially suffer the most from the horrible disease and their beak effectively malforms and crumbles as the disease progresses. Feather condition progressively worsens and they eventually won't grow back. Secondary issues turn up and so forth.
If his feathers are growing back and are looking normal as they come through then that is a positive sign that it more than likely isn't PBFD but as you have been advised, the best peace of mind is the test. I know that even though it was expensive for testing M-Star - (her vet fees have been triple what I initially paid for her) the assurance it has given me for her health being fine is priceless.
Not many species can recover in some form and become carriers of PBFD, lorikeets are one of them, but I don't think cockies are able to which is why I say if the feather condition is improving then PBFD is more than likely not the problem, however, ruling it out with the test I would still urge you to do.

 

[komodeno]

Thx Jam.I think you are right.His feathers are growing back normally and his beak is absolutely normal.
As i sad i think i got a bit paranoid when reading about feather plucking and feather condition.
I'm really somehow convinced that his problem is the diet change especially the seeds and eggs limitation from my side.He use to have eggs everyday!
Can someone give opinion about the two supplements Avical and feathereific?



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[WofDiscovery]

I don't have a bird with feather plucking issues currently, but I worked with a Catalina Macaw years ago that had come from a home where he had been neglected before I got to work with him. So, by the time I got to him his feather plucking was a bad habit, and there were a LOT of feathers that actually had damaged follicles because of his years of plucking. His entire chest as well as the body part under his wings was plucked, although from the back you couldn't tell he was plucked, he looked horrible from the front. I've also learned that some males will actually start plucking their chest feathers as a "brooding" behavior to add feathers to help build a nest during breeding season, and sometimes if they do this too often it can turn into a habit as well, although given his history I'm sure his problem was the cause of neglect. Anyway, I wanted to give my two cents to those of you who have birds where the plucking has become a habit, since I was able to find something that helped break his habit and allowed him to grow feathers back in (unfortunately it started again after I left). If you take a cactus perch (the ones with the holes in it) and use elmer's glue (non-toxic) to glue feathers into it (you can either use feathers from the bottom of the birds cage that you've managed to collect, or get some very simple ones from Michael's and use food-coloring to make them the colors that your bird is). The idea is that your bird starts to pluck the feathers off of that, instead of the feathers off of itself. Another reason that some birds in captivity can go to plucking is because they don't have the "preening" behavior to do with their flock members that they would be doing in the wild...so, if you have a bird by itself in a cage I would make sure it gets some "preening time" with you at the very least weekly, if not more. While plucking the feathers on the perch should allow for the old feathers to grow back in, you do still need to address whatever issue is causing the bird to pluck in the first place. That's just an idea to help get out of the "habit" of plucking that some birds have gotten stuck in. Hope it helps someone!