Do Your Pluckers Like to Be Petted?

[suncoast]

Just an observation today. Truely loves to be petted. Folly doesn't. Folly's feathers are much denser, and she's very silky from the dust. Is this a legitimate idea or does it not hold water?

Ginger

 

[Birdiemarie]

Well you know ekkies are not too much into petting but Ruby does enjoy her skin being touched. She gets lots of skin kisses too. I love her warm little body.

 

[Bokkapooh]

All the pluckers I've known and all the full feathered 'toos I have known, LOVE, just LOVE being touched. Louie, my U2, who was severely abused to try and make him a breeder bird, who was starved, loved being touched when he overcame his fear of people.

 

[suncoast]

Hmmm, just wondering if we get something on their feathers when we pet which might cause plucking.

Ginger

 

[Holiday]

Hmmm, just wondering if we get something on their feathers when we pet which might cause plucking.

Ginger

Well, I know our hands do have oils that can get on their feathers, but I'd think that normal washing would keep it to a reasonable level. I do usually wash my hands before I pet my birds.

I'm so sorry about Truely and her plucking issue.

 

[Kayaker]

My scarlet George who is very plucked, loves for me to pet him anytime anywhere. He just loves for ME to rub him or preen him. anybody else I think he would take their finger off if they tried to pet him.

 

[Chicobo]

Ginger --

I get where you're coming from, but to offer a counter point? Could it be that the pluckers are just a certain type of personality? For example, I can think of two types:

a) This bird is the bird who LOVES people. He/she wants to be petted because it helps form a bond with the human and makes the bird feel wanted a loved. When the bird is alone or the human is otherwise occupied, the bird becomes distressed, and the distress turns into plucking.

b) This is the bird who plucks for some unknown reason -- but for the plucked bird, who is usually in pain from his/her own touch, kind, gentle hands feel good. Maybe the fact that the bird is missing his or her feathers means touch to the skin is more pleasurable. Or maybe touching them feels like good, natural preening instead of plucking.

Just a thought? I hold to the idea that birds are just as complex psychologically as we are (as I'm sure many, if not most, AA'ers will agree) and these are just some basic ideas based on psychopathology. CC, for example, likes me but she prefers (and is much less stressed) when I leave her alone in her cage to play most of the day. If I take her out too much, she gets agitated, bitey, and sometimes over-preens!

 

[Sunnyside]

For me, I have found the opposite When I pet Buttons she will freak if I touch her skin. She will let me manipulate her wings and pet them and her head and even her feet, she has feathers around her feet and it looks like she is wearing booties. But if I go for the skin she lets me have it full force and she growls.

 

[JLcribber]

Petting is something they "learn" to like and one of those things that gets conditioned into a hand fed bird from very early on. They don't pet each other. The only time they really come close to something like it is during mating and that's not really petting. And on that note petting "is" stimulating when done anywhere but the head and neck. Once we "learn" that something feels good we tend to want more of it. Personally I don't believe it has much to do with plucking or no plucking.

 

[zoo mom]

My plucker likes to have his head scritched touch him anywhere else and you will get nailed

 

[Katster]

This video answers the question of if Dante de Rose loves to be petted