New CAG, various questions

[kyparamedic]

I just got my CAG from a coworker. She's 3-4 year's old and is plucking her feathers. He said that she had been doing this for the last couple of months and it has gotten worse recently, he thinks because he hasn't had any time for her, which is why he wanted to find her a new home. You can see her bare chest which looks scaly and dry in a lot of places and part of her back looks kind of raggedy. I have placed a humidifier near her cage and have been trying to give her lots of attention. The first 2 days I would leave her cage open to see if she wanted to come out, I wouldn't go in after her. When she did, I would walk up to her and see if she would let me pet her. She would lower her head down and let me pet it and let me pet her beak, but then sometime she would grab my finger. Normally it was a soft nip but other times it could be hard. A couple of times when I've gone to pick her up she's bitten hard enough to draw blood. She doesn't talk as much as he said she did, which he said was normal around new people, but she has started saying more things, like her name, and other stuff that I don't understand. She also makes lots of bird noises now. I bought some moisturizing spray with aloe vera that's supposed to help with plucking. She absolutely hates it though. If I even go near the bottle she starts squawking and flapping her wings. I try to get it without her seeing it but I feel like I'm tricking her and making her mad and this may not be the best thing. What should I do? I'm going to schedule an appt. with the vet but would like to try to do something in the meantime. There's always small white feathers in her water bowl and she'll shake, sending what looks like a dust storm everywhere.

Also, sometimes when she's out of her cage she'll stand on one leg, pull the other one up and extend it out along with that wing. I don't know if she's trying to show off or what. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Andrew

[DaffyToons]

Give her some time to adjust. African Greys are notoriously afraid of any kind of change. Keep the humidifier close by her cage. She is probably very afraid of the spray bottle, so, for now, at least until she is better acclimated to you and your home, I would forego it. A trip to an avian vet is a good idea, too.

Go slow, slow, slow with her. Let her build her confidence in you that you are not going to hurt her.

Also, when she stands on one leg and extends the other leg out with her wing, she is just stretching. All my birds do it. )

Please keep us posted!

Jen

[FairY]

Ohhh Kyparamedic ... it sounds as if she's feeling rather poor, no? (with the plucking and all) - Or is this just my impression?

Hopefully she'll feel settled and at ease soon and things will go better with that (plucking).

Good luck

[kyparamedic]

Thanks for all the advice. She's doing pretty good now, except for the plucking and biting. She seems much more comfortable and always wants to come out and visit. She likes me to scratch her head and always lowers it down but then will randomly try to bite me. A lot of times it's not a bite, just a soft nip like she's tasting my finger or something. It's hard to tell what she's going to do so it makes me nervous when she does this. She loves to chew and shred paper and I'll hold it up to her to let her shred it but I'm wondering if this is encouraging her biting or she thinks it's a game. The other night she'd try to bite, I'd pull away, and then she'd act like she wasn't paying attention and try to get me.

Her skin seems very dry and she scratches a lot and when she does it looks like "dandruff" is going everywhere. I've stopped spraying her as she obviously doesn't like it.

Something else interesting is that the other day my roommate was in the room and petting her and she just jumped off and grabbed ahold of his pants and started trying to climb up him until I went over and she climbed onto my hand. This is the 2nd time she's gone after him. He hasn't done anything to provoke her that I can tell, and she lets him pet her although he's extremely nervous about the whole biting thing.

[FairY]

I think the beak of a bird is somewhat like a human being's hand... touching, feeling... that's probably the reason why so many of them use this part of their body to 'connect' - until they're told it's forbidden

[DaffyToons]

I would encourage paper shredding, as it may keep her busy with that instead of biting or plucking her feathers. My one CAG, Sylvester, spends almost his entire day shredding rope toys. I pick up handfuls of string that he demolished during the day. It keeps him busy! You can buy safe paper toys for your bird to shred. That will ensure the ink (if any) is bird safe.

[kyparamedic]

FairY, how do you let them know it's forbidden? From what I've read, the best thing to do is ignore it and just take it. However, even when I try my hardest to ignore it, it's pretty obvious I'm not enjoying it and I think she knows this! I think she gets some perverted pleasure out of this. When I have yelled at her, she just kinda gives me this look like, what are you going to do about it?

[FairY]

Kyparamedic, I've seen Brdiecat write here that she just stops giving attention to the bird if he does something forbidden. I think it doesn't really matter if your Grey notices you don't like it, it matters what you do with it. What Brdiecat writes sounds very logical to me, knowing that bad behaviour results in no attention anymore seems to me sufficient to let him stop. No?

[kyparamedic]

Well, I thought I'd give an update. After a $620 vet bill, I've found out that my grey probably has an aspergillosis infection. They're sending lab work and cultures off to the University of Miami but it will take 4-5 weeks for results of the cultures to come back since they have to culture it for 4 weeks. He became concerned after her xrays showed distended air sacs and a small spot around her lung. He also wants to rule out heavy metal toxicity. He said the next step is to scope her to see exactly what's there and to possibly get a culture. I go back next week. I can't wait to see the bill on that one. In the meantime I'm getting her flucanazole orally every 24 hours and spraying her 4x day which she hates. It's this product called Pluck No More that's homeopathic. He said it's only one of 2 products he's ever endorsed but that it's the only thing he's seen work consistently. I put it in her water as well. So I guess we'll find out more next week.

[FairY]

Kyparamedic, I'm so sorry, poor birdie (poor wallet as well :blush: )

What a pity a culture takes that long to show results...