I have spent the past week observing Lady’s plucking. It is very upsetting to watch, especially when she screams in pain! My first thought, is that she does not want to put herself through pain, why would she want to do that? So whilest watching her pluck, with tears streaming down my face, a light bulb switch on in my head!
When Lady plucks, she takes the plucked feather in her foot, and licks the oil off the end, then preens her other feathers! She was preening today, so I thought that I would examine her preen gland. Her preen gland is very dry, which tells me it could be blocked. This could be why, she is taking the oil off the end of hr plucked feathers!
I have given Lady a warm compress, and massaged the gland. I will continue to do this over the next few days to see if I can unblock it. The preen gland could be blocked for a number of reasons, poor diet which Lady was on before, vitamin deficiency, infection etc, but I will have a chat my avian vet next week.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I am right on this, but I must admit the evidence so far, points to a blocked preen gland!
I give my Grey, Kiko, Red Palm Oil (human grade). It is a staple of African and Caribbean cuisine. A big jar is about $12 and can be found on the web. Greys apparently eat a LOT of Red Palm nuts in the wild. Kik gets about a half teaspoon full mixed into his food.
Hi Walt, Lady is having Avix Booster (Red Palm Oil) mixed with ZuPreem Natural pellets, which she seems to be enjoying. Thanks for your advice. It’s good that Kiko has Red Palm Oil too.