[Ringneckmom]

I'm sorry that you have been betrayed by the former owner, but at least he is with you now and is on his way to recovery.

I have a feather picker as well, my hahns, she started at an early age also so I have been dealing with that for at least a year. It started out with just snipping feathers on the inside wings and then got progressively worse. She has had the bloodwork and the Aspergillosis Titer to make sure it is not something medical and she is healthy. Still she picks and has pretty much cleaned off the feathers on her chest, legs, around the back and around her tail. I have her collared now 24/7 to try and stop the habit. I do take it off during the weekend when I can monitor her and this past weekend thought maybe she wasn't picking until she snipped a new feather on her leg. So the collar is back on. She and I are working through trust issues and anything that she doesn't like such as grooming (which she needs right now) and the collar just seem to set it back every time.

I have just recently converted all my larger birds to a pellet diet and will also do fresh food as well as some seed blend. The fresh they will get more often than the seed and right now they are not getting any seed except what is in a nutriberry or avicake. I have noticed a difference in the molted feather condition from using the pellets, but I also have to geive them the fresh food as well. I have actually done some researching to see if I could find out what my birds eat in their native habitat. Obviously, it will not be 100 percent on everything, but it helps me to understand their diet better. One thing I had always noticed is that when I put in their food, the first thing they went for was the fruit. I recently read a post by some one that lives near their native habitat the also helped comfirm that they eat quite a bit of fruit in the wild.

If you can do the research then it will help you to try and resemble his natural diet to the best of your ability and make also make for a healthier bird.

Try not to stress and obsess too much about the picking. I know how you feel - I did it as well. Now it doesn't bother AS much but yeah I still obsess about it at times as well. Just try and do what you can to give him an enriching environment and definitely do the physical with bloodwork and, if you can, do any of the other tests to make sure it is not a medical thing. If not medical then you can try to work on the emotional part.

In the end you may have to just love him with his grey chest and all. He may never stop so just make sure you are realistic about what you try to put him through.

Good luck with him.

BTW - they will pull full feathers as well so the only way to know it is actually molting is when you have an explosion of feathers and no bare spots aside from the ones he has currently.