: plucking episode :
Tori has pulled out nearly all her feathers. That means, all the ones from under her wings, sides, back, lower back, nearly all the legs feathers, nearly all the chest feathers and almost all the belly feathers
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No matter what I do...Makira picks. It's almost like normal parrot grooming, only she's pulling them out, over preening...and there's not a damn thing I can do. Do I just say "Well you're gonna do it, I may as well accept it" or do I exhaust every doctors resources and exhaust her going to doctor after doctor and diet after diet etc. I just get to the point where I have no energy to do it anymore. No diet has made her magically better, no medicine, no injection nothing.
I had her wings clipped because I had a screen fall out scare. The cat knocked it out and Makira never noticed but if she had :((((( So despite knowing it could make her pluck worse, I had them clipped.
You know what I hate? That we trust a doctor, we listen to them and think...maybe they have something, maybe that *will* work and then we sit there obsessively watching our parrot thinking "maybe it's working" and the next day it's all in vain...feathers barbered and ripped and pulled.
Off topic but yesterday I came home to find Makira limping..she had to have got caught in a toy while I was gone. She pulled herself out but her foot is sore. Scared me to death, it's the 3rd time she has done it in her life.
I am so sorry about Tori :((
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It's like you said, no doctor, diet, pill, drug, injection or behavior modification has helped her or stopped her. Once she started, she didn't stop and hasn't since. Things could be good for a couple months, some flimsy new feathers could come in, then in a matter of 3 days she's bare again. It's so hopeless. Nothing in my life has been this horribly defeating and hopeless.
Then I go through the cycle of, here I am thinking I know something about birds, about animals in general. Who the hell am I? I'm worthless. Look what I did to my bird. Then people tell me not to blame myself, that it's not my fault and that she was born that way. But I think, she was fine for two years before she started plucking, how can she have been born sick? Then I go back to trying everything else that I haven't tried before. Then I go back to being devastated and blaming myself. It's so sick.
Now I'm wondering, is she the sick one or am I? My lack of control over this issue is devastating me, perhaps I should seek some serious psychiatric assistance. But then I think, what mother wouldn't do simply anything and everything to help her child become better? It's not a matter of control, it's a matter of love and wanting to take care of, cure, help, be a mother to a being that is completely innocent and doesn't know that she shouldn't scratch an itch or pull a feather if it's bothering her.
I think that now that I've had experience with many different doctors and together with the knowledge I do have, I'm going to buy my own biolight box (they're $400 which is something I could have paid for by now if I hadn't been spending money on doctors for her) and keep going with the herbal medication (which is something he can either provide me with or I can make my own) because those are the only things that seem to help relieve her itching. The spots under her wings are nearly completely healed and my only worry is that if feathers don't grow back again, they may become hot and open up again which is why I want to buy the biolight and have the Silvedene creme at my disposal.
She's really not an unhealthy bird. I mean, all her bloodwork and testing came back normal. It always has. She's had bacterial infections before, but what bird hasn't? She's a healthy, happy bird. She weighs perfect weight for her. She shreds her toys and hangs out on her perch in the sunlight. She's affectionate and has stopped sneezing and yawning considerably since I've been giving her the herbal meds. The only thing she does wrong is pluck out all her feathers.
You're totally right. I've put my trust in doctors too many times, too often. I'm going to have a conversation with this guy about further treatment and how I'm not going to be doing everything that he orders so he can bleed me dry of all my money and still not heed my direct warning when I tell him what doesn't work. This fucking prick, I swear. If he hadn't helped her with the wounds under her wings I'd seriously give him the worst tongue-lashing of his entire career but I know he really does want to help Tori. I'm going to curb the doctor's visits and start over with her. I've already changed her diet to everything organic and homemade. I've noted that the Avian Miracle Diet causes her to toe-tap and wing-flip severely and I don't want her to suffer like that. This is the only diet I've ever had her on that allows her to be totally still and not suffer through side effects.
I'm sorry Makira has sprained her ankle. That's so horrible. Simon has twisted and sprained his foot so many times, I just shake my head at him and give him heat and lots of room when he does it. He's a nutcase, though. I'm actually rather shocked that he has grown in a tail this time and kept it.
Thanks for allowing me to write this stuff out. Knowing you are exactly where I'm at is so helpful in talking about it.
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