pollyfolliculitis

[ilikebirds]

If anyone has experienced this skin and feather problem, I would like to hear about it.
Our Twinkie, a rescue Peach face, is super shy. She hates to be touched, and is super stressed when you do so, and I have neglected to do hands on health checks as a result.
From just looking at her, she is a beauty, no obvious problems. Beak is great, feet, toes, all that.
She has gotten a bit bolder, and yesterday, caught her in the open, preening. She turned around to do her tail, fluffed it up, and her butt looks terrible! I had no idea!! So, I took her out, and it appears multiple feathers are errupting from single follicules. Ive never heard of ingrown feathers. Its must be so unfomfortable...so I looked it up. We really have no avain vet in the area, so I would like to reserch a bit before I call around. I have found this to be common in peachface, but some articles claim a virus is responsible, another says it is genetic.
I feel terrible for my friend. Maybe I could have caught it a while ago if I had handled her. But she just isnt a hands on bird. She doesnt even like you to look at her. If you do, she will hide her face behind her snuggie, waiting for you to go away.
So now I have to drag her to the vet, and I hope they can help her. She wont bite, but is so afraid.
For others who have had this, is it viral? Do they prescribe drugs? I have a pure aloe liquid, can that soothe her? The sites also said it tends to be a chronic condition. Do any of you find that true? I sure hope not.

 

[itzmered]

I am so sorry your poor little one is going through this. I know one member on here has a couple of birds with this. Hopefully she will be along soon to offer some advice

 

[suncoast]

I know what helps is pulling the feathers out of the folicle. Also Leya needed to be collared to keep her from multilating her shoulder.

Pure vitamin E might help. Poke a hole in a caplet with a sterile needle and put a drop on the area.

Ginger

 

[ilikebirds]

thank you Ginger! I hope she doesnt get more shy from needing to touch her...or maybe it will help.
Do you find it to be a chronic problem?

 

[love4birds]

Hi,
I have two peachfaced lovebirds with polyfolliculitis: Leyla and Kermit. I got Leyla as a baby (weaned), and she started getting multiple-feather follicles when she was about a year old. Kermit was a rescue-of-sorts, I don't know his history or age.

Leyla is tame and I can check her over no problem, but Kermit is hand-shy and does not enjoy being restrained. I can't really avoid scaring him to restrain him, so I make it a point to only check on his feathers if he's acting really itchy/uncomfortable, or if he's obviously plucking/mutilating.

I've read that polyfolliculitis is caused by a virus and it's triggered by stress. Neither theories make sense to me though, as it's not contagious like a virus would be, and although Kermit definitely has some stress, what with him not being tame, Leyla is a very happy bird (although the polyfolliculitis itself is definitely a stress).

I know for sure Leyla's dad is a plucker (for 'no reason'), and it wouldn't surprise me if it was because of polyfolliculitis. I think it's probably passed on in genetics to certain birds.

Leyla's mostly affected on her rump:

She's had as many as nine feathers in one follicle:

Most on her have 3-6, but from what I've read, the 'norm' is 2-3. She's also affected on her shoulders/back and has mutilated her right shoulder twice in the past. Those times I had to put a cone on her so the mutilated area could heal.

Leyla pretty much plucks or chews on the multiple-feather clusters as soon as they emerge. Since they're still blood-feathers at this stage, the chewing often results in bleeding, in which case I pull out the clusters and chewed blood-feathers with tweezers.

Kermit is mostly affected around his neck and his left shoulder/wingpit. When I brought him home, he had mutilated his left shoulder/wingpit. He had to wear a cone for about 3 months. Now he's out of the cone and doing fairly well, though he still chews a tiny bit under his wing (if he does any more, I'll be putting a cone back on).

In my experience, vets can't do anything for polyfolliculitis, aside from prescribing antibiotics for when they mutilate, etc. There is no cure, since we don't really know what causes it.

My vet gave me calendula tincture to put on the wounds for when Leyla and Kermit were mutilating to help them heal. I've used aloe, too.

Since there is no cure for it, I would consider it chronic. Most times, if a follicle grows more than one feather, it continues to do so (at least for Leyla and Kermit that is the case).

I have heard that vets can essentially do electrolysis on the affected follicles to the feathers don't grow back, but even that might not be a long-term cure as different follicles could start growing multiple feathers, too.

However, Leyla's been living with polyfolliculitis for 4 years, and recently I've noticed she's not as itchy - I think the repeated plucking of the feathers (both by her and me) has killed most of her rump follicles. I see absolutely no new growth on most of her rump, which, in this case, is awesome! Her tail still bothers her a bit, and one follicle near her preen gland gets bad, but more-or-less she's doing quite well lately. She still does a little plucking (not easily visible unless you know it's there) on her shoulders, but no mutilating in a long time.

I've only had Kermit for about 4-5 months now, so I don't know how his plucking will go in the future. I've only seen double-feather follicles on him though, so at least he hasn't gotten as bad as Leyla was.

This was Kermit when he first came home. You can see where he had mutilated:

The best advice I can give is to make sure she has tons of shreddables, soft wood, and preening toys to keep them busy! Leyla will literally sit and preen a piece of cotton rope for hours if she's really itchy. When she went through really bad spells of growing multiple-feather clusters, she'd overpreen Nin's (her boyfriend) head and the tips of his head feathers looked kinda scrappy. Which reminds me, she also chews the tips of her own feathers. Not a whole lot, but if you're up close you notice it. Kermit doesn't do this.

If you have any more questions, just let me know and I'll do my best to answer

 

[ilikebirds]

Thanks for all the info, and those are helpful pics. I will acess twinkie again, and see how bad it is. I just remember at least 1 cluster, and that freaked me out. Put her right back and started searching.
How often do you pull them? I have pulled pin feathers, not my favvorite thing to do.

 

[ilikebirds]

So her damage is extensive...the whole rump, and under to her cloaca have clusters and bare skin. Under the wings she has picked, and I saw no clusters. One cluster on the upper thigh looks like at least 5 feathers. She is not scabby, no blood. You mentioned pulling the follicule is the bird chewed and was bleeding...but would pulling large follicules that are not bleeding ease her? Her butt looks like a porcupine...
Again, is there danger of infection from pulling? I know to keep things clean, but I wouldnt want to endanger her.
Put aloe on her butt, hopefully it will soothe her a bit. I will also get those vitamin A capsules.

 

[Marlene]

Poor thing. I hope you can find or do something that helps. Megan, love4birds, has lots of experience with this and she will be able to help you. Hugs to you and your baby.

 

[love4birds]

How often do you pull them? I have pulled pin feathers, not my favvorite thing to do.

When Leyla's was really bad, there were times I'd be pulling at least a cluster a week. The bad thing with this is when a feather is pulled straight out, it starts regrowing immediately and you'll have the problem all over again. But, if I didn't pull out the really bad clusters (or ones that just plain bother her a lot), then she'd eventually chew at them, which meant they'd get broken and bleed. So I guess it's the lesser of two evils in this case.

Now, I rarely have to pull any. I pulled one cluster yesterday morning because she had already chewed at it and I woke up the fids to find Leyla's bottom and beak covered in blood. That's never fun. But, that was the first cluster I've had to pull from her in probably a couple months. I don't have to pull clusters from Kermie very often, because his aren't as bad and don't both him as much. At least, I've never found him with blood everywhere!

So her damage is extensive...the whole rump, and under to her cloaca have clusters and bare skin. Under the wings she has picked, and I saw no clusters. One cluster on the upper thigh looks like at least 5 feathers. She is not scabby, no blood. You mentioned pulling the follicule is the bird chewed and was bleeding...but would pulling large follicules that are not bleeding ease her? Her butt looks like a porcupine...
Again, is there danger of infection from pulling? I know to keep things clean, but I wouldnt want to endanger her.
Put aloe on her butt, hopefully it will soothe her a bit. I will also get those vitamin A capsules.

Aw poor girl That sounds like Leyla with the plucking pattern, except Leyla doesn't do under the wings.

Regarding pulling the large clusters - I've learned with Leyla that if I don't pull them when they have 6+ feathers, then she'll eventually chew at them and they'll bleed. So for her, if I see a large cluster like that, I do pull it. It does hurt them to pull the feathers, but it definitely gives them so relief, even if it's temporary.

I haven't had problems with either Leyla or Kermie with infection, but I'm sure it probably could happen. If you're concerned, you could ask a vet about putting an ointment on the pulled follicles or something. Personally, I just pull them and leave them, but if they've mutilated skin, I put on a little calendula tincture.

 

[Jorg S.]

Poor fids.
I had never heard of this before but it sounds very uncomfortable to say the least.