Vet's View
Feather Picking
by Joel Murphy D.V.M.
October 2001
Treating Unknown Causes | Nutrition | Relationships with Humans | Relationships with Birds | Drugs | Hormone Therapy
Treating Unknown Causes
When treating feather picking, it is important to not get trapped in assumptions of cause and effect. This is even more important with holistic practitioners than mainstream practitioners. I often deal with clients who have “decided on a cause” of feather picking and have given their birds several unsuccessful “therapies”. Instead of being flexible and looking for other causes or therapeutic approaches, these clients hold on to their intense belief of the “cause”. For some of these people the “evil” preservatives in the diet did it. For other people it is the “toxins” in the house, for others “allergic reactions.” It seems like everyone interested in holistic medicine obsesses over a favorite theory and looks no further.
The fact is that most of the causes of feather picking are unknown and with current technology we do not have the ability to determine the cause. When a pet bird has a physiological disease that can be detected on the avian exam the treatment is usually straightforward and the response is usually very observable. For instance when a pet bird is suffering from a Giardia infection and feather picking, the bird usually stops picking very quickly when treated with the appropriate medication. When a pet has a fungal infection, the fungus is readily observable on skin biopsies and cultures, and the bird responds very quickly to appropriate medications.
When a pet bird has an allergic skin disease, the skin biopsy will reveal high levels of eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) in dermal and sub dermal sections. If no allergy is diagnosed, it can be quite a challenge to determine the cause. Food is the obvious first place to start.
We determine a food is the cause when there is a very dramatic response to the elimination of a food in the diet. It is important to note that allergies usually are the result of much deeper imbalances that need to be addressed. In traditional Chinese Medicines, allergies are considered a symptom of an unbalanced or blocked chi. In homeopathy, allergies are considered a symptom of an energy matrix that needs to be dissolved or brought into balance. The actual food or pollen or mold “causing the allergy” is only really nature’s way of pointing out that the body is out of harmony. In veterinary medicine we suspect that birds have allergies, however, no one has ever documented a case of allergic feather picking in pet birds.
Currently, there is research being done by Dr. Tully in developing tests for allergies. Until then, we can only speculate if birds have food allergies or allergies to pollens and molds. It is certainly possible, but if you look at cases where birds seemed to respond to eliminating allergens either food or airborne, other changes were also made at the same time. Thus it is impossible to pin point the actual cause.
Problems arise with birds that have an illness that cannot be diagnosed on the avian exam. This is when the real work begins. Since we do not know the cause it is best to take a systematic approach and then observe for the cessation of feather picking. I repeat – the cessation of feather picking. It is also important to realize that feather picking often waxes and wanes. A bird will appear to improve only to start again. You think you have found the “one” cause only to find out that it is something else. That is why it is important to focus more on the cessation of feather picking using a holistic approach.
Rather than try to find that “one” cause and one treatment focus on the whole picture. Our real goal is to stop the feather picking so lets optimize every facet of the feather picking bird’s life and see if this stops the feather picking.
In this approach to treatment we are not going to find the cause of feather picking – we are changing too many things at once. Don’t even fall into the trap of believing it was this or that. If a cause did not show up on the avian exam we are not going to find it. Instead let us think of feather picking as a symptom of something wrong with the bird’s total internal body and external environment and hope that we are able to correct it. Always keep in mind that feather picking often waxes and wanes so don’t get too excited if you see an initial response, improvement for a long period of time. One year at least is what we are after.
The first and most obvious step is to place the bird on a correct diet. I recommend a base diet of Harrison pellets (which have no preservatives, food colorings and are organic.) In addition, feed fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts. I also recommend increasing the omega 3 in the diet with either flaxseed or 3-V liquid. Increasing the beta-carotenes in the diet is also important. This can be done with blue green algae – just be careful of the source.
I believe in adding supplements that contain nutrients and enzymes missing from pellets. Some supplements we recommend are: Noni juice (Tahitian only), MSM, and Una de gato (cats claw). We have developed a nutritional supplement for pet birds, which consists of 45 different herbs with enzyme and antioxidant properties. We make this fresh for our patients and use it daily. It is good for 3 months. You can call our office 727-784-0558 to order this product.
If possible contact a bird behavior therapist and really analyze your relationship with your bird. Are you unconsciously giving your bird positive reinforcement for feather picking? Steve Martin, a very experienced trainer, tells me that parrots are so smart that rewarding a parrot one time can initiate a good or bad behavior. It is so easy to give a bird positive reinforcement. A simple treat or giving your bird attention, even if it is scolding, can be positive reinforcement. It is very difficult to self-analyze the situation, so get the help of a behavior consultant.
We often find that owners who really love and care for their birds experience the most problems with feather picking. When analyzed, we often find that these owners are inadvertently sexually stimulating their pets. We can measure this by testing hormonal levels. In these situations less cuddling and physical contact is healthier for the bird.
Is the house too loud and chaotic, or is the house too quiet? Remember the rainforest is not a quiet, static environment. Are you stressed out from work, divorce, life, etc and is your bird soaking up these stressful emotions. Is it time to start meditating with your bird? When we meditate with our birds we actively let them soak up great energies released from our higher self. What greater gift could you give your pet?
Did your pet bird start feather picking when a new bird or even other pet came into the family? Not all birds are compatible with each other. Do the birds get along? Can you move the birds around in the house so that they seem more happy? These are all issues that you have to look at if you have a multiple bird household.
In the wild, most species of parrots spend all of their life with a mate. They interact with other birds in the flock, but spend most of their time with a mate. The obvious knee jerk approach is to get the feather picking bird a mate. However, we found in our research aviary that even when a feather picking bird bred successfully with a mate, they rarely stopped feather picking. (They did stop feather picking when we got them a new mate and used flower essences)
Play
Parrots are extremely intelligent and require mental stimulation. They need toys and games with which to play. Rarely, though, does adding toys to the cage by itself stop feather picking. It is just one step in enhancing every part of your bird’s life. Is your pet afraid of the new toy?
Be extremely careful not to poison your bird with lead and especially zinc by adding toys to the cage. Most commercially sold parrot toys have unacceptable high levels of zinc, which can also cause feather picking
We can certainly sedate a bird so severely with drugs such as Halperidol, but in my mind this is not a solution. We tried the newer generations of Halperidol, which cause less sedation and found no effect. We have certainly looked and tried many drugs. I experimented with analapril and many other compulsive behavior drugs and found no response. Others have repeated my experiments with the same lack of response. Tricyclic antidepressants have also been used with equally lack of response. We have looked and looked, myself and many other veterinarians, and we have not found a psychoactive drug that stops feather picking.
If we have not found a physical cause of feather picking on our avian exam, then I do not recommend drugs. We have not found a psychoactive drug that is effective for solving feather picking from mental or emotional problems, so why subject a bird to the toxic side effects if there is no benefit?
I don’t just take this approach because I prefer a holistic approach, I take this position because we have not found a drug that works. If we had a drug that worked and that was the only way I could alleviate one of my patients from suffering I would not hesitate to use it. I believe that veterinarians prescribe drugs for feather picking simply because they feel that the owners expect something after spending so much money to do the necessary tests.
The only time we use drugs is to correct a physical disease that we have found on the avian exam, such as Giardia, fungal. bacterial or heavy metal poisoning. Drugs work great for solving feather picking when we have found one of these causes.
In many cases feather picking is caused by sexual hormonal imbalance. When studied we have found that some feather picking birds both male and female are stuck in the high testosterone levels normally found in early nesting behavior. We call this sexual frustration. Often the cause is a human inadvertently sexually stimulating their bird.
In these cases a new hormonal therapy called Lupron can be effective in both diagnosis of the cause of feather picking and treatment. We often use Lupron initially to test to see if sexual hormone imbalance is causing the feather picking. By giving these injections to a bird once every 2 weeks we can determine if excess sexual hormones are causing the feather picking behavior. There are other hormone therapies that we have used in the past such as depo provera and HCG, but these are not as effective and have more side effects so there is no reason to use them anymore.
If hormonal therapy is successful, then we work with a behavior therapist to find out why this bird is sexually stimulated. Lupron appears to be very safe, but I do not like to give it to a bird for life. This is treating the symptom rather than either the underlying cause or relationship between the pet bird and the family.
In the next Issue I will discuss the use of homeopathics, flower essences, energy dowsing, acupuncture, reiki and stiloself therapies for feather picking and other bird diseases.