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Apr 12, 05
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Got a birdy!.. need help
i just got a cockatiel and it keeps plucking, grooming, pecking himself. is that normal?
anyone who has/had a bird help me pls 
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Apr 12, 05
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Apr 12, 05
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i had one of them like 10 years ago, just when i moved here and it plucked it's feathers ocasionally. natural grooming and stuff. tho i have seen some birds get overly obbsessed about how they look, like some other beings on this planet, not naming any girls or anything. just let if pluck itself so much so much that there is a bald spot showing. i wouldn't worry bout it. they're lovely birds:)
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Apr 12, 05
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i've had birds since i was like 7 or 8. it all depends on what your birds doing. if he's just preening and removing the feather casings and helping to allow the new feathers to come in easier then he's fine. sometimes they look like they're almost balding when they're molting because the old feathers have come out and the new ones aren't quite out of their quill cases. that's fine. but if your bird is harming himself then i would be concerned. if you see raw spots, or if he's focusing on one spot to such an extent that it bleeds, i would maybe take him to your vet. my parrot, jake, once injured the back of his head by scratching. the vet said she believes it's not stress related but possibly a bug bite he got. needless to say he wore the cone of shame (my name for the elizabethan collar) to prevent him touching it and he got some antibiotics. remember that birds are susceptible to infection. the second time he hurt his head in the same spot we think it was an accident on his part. it was a few months after his first injury, and the skin is paper like, thin and very fragile. i think he was just itching his head and tore the skin by accident. that time he had to get stitches, which tore, and then stitched again, a second skin and then guaze and his whole neck from the top of his wings up to his eyeballs got wrapped in neon pink vetwrap. he looked SOOOOOOOOOOo funny and SOOOOOOOOOOOOo mad when i picked him up from the vet. now he has a little scar on the back of his head where the feathers wont grow. that was almost 2 years ago now. he hasn't had a problem since, and no longer wears the cone of shame. use your best judgement. but remember that birds are very fragile creatures who hide pain/infection and sickness well. VERY well. and are VERY sensitive to stress ie too much loud fighting, change in environment, the death of a person or animal in the house could spark this obsessive picking behaviour. what's his name?
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Apr 12, 05
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^ purdy birds
its my first time with a bird :) i'm just getting use to it grooming and shakeing his dustys and fluff off everywhere
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Apr 12, 05
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that's just the feather casings.
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Apr 14, 05
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possibly mites? or fleas?
Take him to your local vet and have him diagnosed. Some birds pluck their feathers purly because of anxiety. maybe take him out of his cage and let him fly around. Cockaties have extremely soft beaks wich means it wont hurt at all when you try to hold him. Make sure you hold him with your thumbs over the back sides of his shoulder blades and your hands wraped gently around the rest of its body.
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Apr 14, 05
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"Cockaties have extremely soft beaks"
MY ASS!!!!! it bit me pretty hard the other day
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Apr 14, 05
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haha
man if you think that's bad imagine jakes beak. he cracks nut shells open with his beak, he also bends metal necklace links and breaks them. this is the same bird who has a massive brass clip on his cage because he knows how to open it in a split second.
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