Penny is still pulling her feathers, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that she might never leave her feathers alone. Maybe the more we try the more we stress them out, so as long as she’s not mutilating herself, she can nip the ends off her feathers if she wants to.
Penny seems to love my partner Darryl, she lets him tickle her head and get close to her so that’s really good, he spends quite a bit of time with her talking and tickling her head. She doesn’t like me at all, but that’s ok at least she has one of us that she is learning to trust. I’ll just carry on doing the things I do, mucking out, feeding, generally keeping her clean and tidy and not getting the rewards hahaha. I can’t help but love her though, she is a fiesty little thing but she’s Penny and she’s here to stay.
She is eating pellets and chop with no bother now, she’s had no rubbish foods since she came here and although I can see an improvement in her feathers, she is still clipping the ends of them. On her right wing, there was a nice flight feather on it’s way but I noticed yesterday that it’s gone! She has loads of toys and I’ve seen her preening them today so maybe, just maybe it will give her feathers a much needed rest if she can preen toys instead.
I give my grey cereal boxes to rip apart. She loves it and has never plucked her feathers. Sometimes I will have an extra special treat she loves in the box. Hope this helps a bit.
Please check out my blog. I have had several greys come in with similar issues. In most cases, it was due to health/nutritional issues. Has your vet done a feather picking panel (blood work) on Penny? Feel free to contact me if you have questions…..
Yes Sue all blood work done everything came back negative. She came to me in June at the age of six and a half having only been fed human food, so yes, it was a diet/nutritional thing we think. She is now having a good diet with Harrisons pellets, fruit and veg plus plenty of toys etc. Now her new feathers are growing nicely so hopefully she won’t clip them again.