rescue love bird chewing its toes off

[conure keeper]

hi,
i'm currently fostering a 1yr old peach faced love bird. the story is that the "owners" wife had a baby and they decided the birds were too messy so he put them out in his shead two days ago. it was about -10c and one died. he brought the other to my work the next day. (this is the one i now have at home) when the bird arrived it had a cut on one of its toes and other than being cold and depressed seems to be in good health. it was put in our indoor aviary and as we have no other birds at work it was on its own. it settled in and although depressed was eating a small amount.
when we came into work the next morning the aviary was a blood bath. the little bird has chewed of part of his right outer front toe (the one that had the cut on) and had also started work on the other side.
i've brought it home with me so that it can see other birds and interact if they all wan't to.(my friendly ones don't want to interact as yet) he seems to have picked up and i let him out for a fly this afternoon.
this evening he has started pulling at the damaged toe. it does look more like he is just trying to clean it up, but i dont want him/her to pull the scab off and make it worse.
any one have any ideas or been in a simalar situation? also if you have, did your bird need to go onto antibiotics/have the foot cleaned? the toe that took the most damage does look swollen but not infected.
thanks

[Monica]

Perhaps his toes got frost-bite??? Your best bet is to take him to an avian vet to ensure his health.

[conure keeper]

went to the vet today, hes on treatment for 7 days. he seems to be fairly friendly. can't touch him yet but hes sat on my laptop while im typing this...although it could just be that the other 3 birds are sat on me so hes come for a look...

[mmr]

what did the vet think was happening? Glad you took him

[conure keeper]

she said it was probably the greif/stress had caused it to self mutilate but we might take swabs of the foot incase its a fungal infection. when the bird came into our centre it had a small cut on the foot and by the next morning it took off part of the toe so it was all done while it was alone.