Golden conure

[Bailey87]

Hello!
Tl;dr: Golden has been plucking for 6 mos, need serious help!
Does anyone here have any golden conure experience? I have a female who has just turned two, and she began plucking in December. She has already been to two different avian vets and she has nothing medically wrong with her. She forages for her food (eating mostly pellets and fresh food), has a cage that is approximately 30"depthx40"widthx60"high. She does not spend a ton of time in her cage, she's out on and off throughought the day for about 4-6 hours total, and is rarely home alone. When she is alone we keep either the tv or radio on for her. There are other birds in the home, she regularly interacts with a sun conure, also female but they have to be supervised as the sun over preens her. The sun was adopted as a plucker, so we have theorized that she may have picked up the habit. Anyone have experience breaking a bird of a plucking habit? It's not so much that she's actually pulling feathers but she breaks them off, around her throat/chest and in front of her legs. I'm going nuts, please help

 

[expressmailtome]

Bump.

 

[Monica]

Have the vets done the full bloodwork on your golden, including doing some skin graphs and X-Rays?



The Basics of Feather Picking

 

[BrianB]

Sometimes plucking can become habitual. That said, I wold recommend a full blood panel. We discovered that one of my birds has a kidney issue. Byproducts normally filtered by the kidneys aren't removed fast enough and build up in the skin, causing irritation, which leads to plucking. Even after a long course of medication, he still plucks. I use an aloe spray to moisturize the skin, and lots of distractions when I see it happening.