separation anxiety?

[jriley]

Hi everyone...haven't posted much lately since school started back (I'm a teacher), but I'm hoping everyone can help with something that's come up.

We've noticed the past week or so that our Quaker, Little Girl, has been looking a little mussed up and then yesterday we discovered that she appears to be plucking her chest.

She has been spending a lot of time on the bottom of her cage, pushing around her foot toys and building complicated structures (not sick, just doing typical Quaker construction, which is easier to do on the cage bottom). We figured the messed up feathers were from all the time running around down there, but we're not sure if the plucking is from some desire to literally feather her nest (she does lay an egg from time to time down there) or if it is separation anxiety now that everyone is back to school.

She didn't seem upset at all last year when everyone was in school/at work all day, but this was her first summer vacation with us and maybe she got used to more freedom than she has now.

We took away all of her cage bottom toys (she still has tons of fun hanging toys) and today she didn't spend much time at all on the cage bottom. She doesn't seem ill in any way: still active, still eating like a pig, so I'm pretty sure it's either nesting behavior or anxiety. Has anyone experienced anything like this with their bird? Any opinions welcome.

Our sun conure, Nicky, has her cage just inches away from Little Girl's but they don't seem very interested in socializing. I keep hoping they'll learn to like each other so they can entertain each other when we're not home.

Julie