Living with bald/plucked/mutilated Birds

[Monica]

When first aquiring a bird that is quite possibly perminately bald in one area, or may have a plucking/mutilation problem, the bird looks deformed, and wrong. After living with this one bird for 6 or so months, the bird looks normal in every way, even if he/she is still missing many feathers. One learns to love this "patchy" bird because there really is no difference from it and other fully feathered birds.

However, when one goes to look at birds of the same species that are fully feathered, sometimes the fully feathered birds are no longer "normal" but rather look off somewhat.

I'd have to agree with all that as my Noel use to have a mutilation problem, doesn't have any feathers on her stomach (let alone 1 or 2), and has a bald patch on the back of her head, though its mostly unrecognizable.



In the above picture you can see her bald stomach where she was attacked by a ferret, and also mutilated herself. She no longer mutilates herself as long as Casey is always there, and I never leave for more than 2 days. (I missed a few trips because I worry too much about Noel).

(PS, this is a crosspost of mine, thought that I would share it with everyone)