My aunt gave my niece her very old green quaker parrot more than a year ago. She seemed to adjust well because my 10 year old niece spends all of her time with greenbean, gives her baths, shares food, etc. However recently she pulled out almost all of her feathers. I was wondering if you could recommend any good articles or if we need a bird doctor. Also books in general bc my niece really loves birds now but no one in the family is very knowledgable. Just worried about her. Thanks if you can!
If this happened very suddenly for no apparent reason, it would be a good idea to get Greenbean checked our by an avian vet. Birds are very good at hiding signs of illness, so something like unexplained feather loss could easily be a health issue that you don’t see manifesting in other ways.
But also think about possible changes in Greenbeans environment that may have caused it. It could be something pretty big, like moving the cage or a new pet (cat or dog), or decreased attention from your niece, or a change in diet. It could also be little things that may not have seemed like a big deal to you—a slight change in routine (wake up/bed time, when your niece gets home to see him, etc.) or wall decorations changing/moving. Or someone burning scented candles, or using air freshened or cleaning sprays. My old boss from the pet store once got ants in the summer, and one day they got into her parrotlets cage, and in the span of a few hours he plucked all his chest feathers out. she got rid of the ants very quickly, but since then he always plucks. Moogan is the same—he started plucking when his previous owner stopped having him a lot of attention, and it got worse when he was rehomed to us, since that’s very stressful. Now he’s a very happy bird, but he continues to pluck.
So basically what I’m saying is it would be best to get him checked out by a vet, but if there’s nothing the vet can find and no obvious environmental cause, it may be something to just live with. Plucking is unfortunately something that’s not very well understood—a lot of cases have really obvious causes, but a lot don’t. And even more that ARE understood have the plucking continue even after the stress is eliminated because it becomes a habit (like Moogan). I can’t find any articles right now because I’m on mobile, but I’ll try to look some up later. Most probably won’t be terribly helpful because like I said, it can be sooo many things and a lot isn’t understood about it, and every situation is different. But it can never hurt to gain some knowledge.
edit: oh, and for good books, you can check out guide to a well-behaved parrot, and the Barron’s books in general are pretty decent. (I’ll add links when I’m not on mobile.) Plus there’s a ton of information online, you just have to know to take everything with a grain of salt because there are a lot of conflicting opinions. And if you have questions about care, you can ask me or any of the bird bloggers over at @askbirdbloggers!
I hope this helps some—let me know what you decide to do!