When I adopted Taco, it was obvious to me that he'd been plucking and barbering his feathers for a long time. His old owners claimed it had been his mate, Trixie, stealing feathers off of him to line her many nests, but considering his abuse and neglect (and the fact that Trixie had died, but Taco was still in awful shape) I figured at least a fair amount was self-inflicted.
At his first vet visit after I brought him home, I had Taco tested for giardia, chlamydia, and any other diseases, parasites, skin infections or toxins I or the vet could think of. Amazingly, he came back with a (mostly) clean bill of health, so the vet and I figured that his feather-destructive behaviour was down to him living a godawful life with a nasty, deficient diet and massive stress.
Putting him on a healthy diet, giving him fun and time-consuming things to do, and giving him lots of love seemed to do the trick. He stopped barbering!
But I always worried that it would take more than that to break an obsessive lifelong habit, and lo and behold, this latest molt seems to have been the trigger for another bout of destruction.
My poor little mac.
At his first vet visit after I brought him home, I had Taco tested for giardia, chlamydia, and any other diseases, parasites, skin infections or toxins I or the vet could think of. Amazingly, he came back with a (mostly) clean bill of health, so the vet and I figured that his feather-destructive behaviour was down to him living a godawful life with a nasty, deficient diet and massive stress.
Putting him on a healthy diet, giving him fun and time-consuming things to do, and giving him lots of love seemed to do the trick. He stopped barbering!
But I always worried that it would take more than that to break an obsessive lifelong habit, and lo and behold, this latest molt seems to have been the trigger for another bout of destruction.
My poor little mac.
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