What's he doing Bob? Plucking the whole feather?
He'll start by picking at a feather, then he chews at it...eventually the feather looks ratty and just hangs there....then he'll pull it out and go to the next one near it.
In the bald areas, new sheaths come out from time to time...Milt will let the sheath start to "come out"...then pull it out.
Do you know when he does it?
He does most of the damage at night...when we uncover him in the morning, you can see all the small pin feathers on the floor cage. The picking of established feathers can come at any time..usually when he thinks we're not looking....very sneaky.
AV has run blood tests, skin scraping, and spectro-analysis of the plucked feathers...all the tests come up negative.
Sleep patterns remain unchanged...12 hours of sleep time every night...no food changes..no allergies noted. I thought maybe Milty was getting too many showers....3 to 4 a week. Asked AV about that...she doesn't think it's a cause of the increased plucking.
I don't remember- have you tried any of the teas with Milton?
Yes...we tried a suggestion by
@rocky'smom ...tea and honey...Milt was meh to it. We've used RPO (Avicalm and a new brand since they went out of business) It's worked in the past, but now it seems to be ineffective.
He doesn't pick while we physically interact with him...but it's not possible to do that 24/7...and it's also obviously not something you should do, anyway.
Through this upsurge in picking'/barbering/ plucking, Milton remains a very happy bird...in fact there's been a marked increase in talking. He gives every indication he knows what he's doing...he attempted to pluck at a neck feather today...I told him, "Please don't do that, Bird, it's bad for your feathers"...he looked at me and replied, "I KNOW"...
