Training a plucker/mutilator

[purplecleo]

Hi All,

I've made a few posts in other areas of this board about Coconut my newly adopted G2 who plucks and mutilates. I was desperate for some medical answers a few days ago and ended up finding a vet willing to do a phone consultation as my local avian vet sucks (long story but trust me, she is not someone I trust unless I absolutely have no other choice).

The Dr. I spoke to, Dr. Speer (In California) gave us some ideas on what to rule out medically but in the meantime to treat the behavioral aspect of her addiction with training.

She is an EXTREMELY fast learner when she wants to be. I had been hesitant to begin any real formal training because I have read that this can stress a bird further if it is already sick. Thus far we have found no medical explanation for her problems and while we still have a few more tests to conduct I feel that her mutilating will not change unless we can teach her and encourage her to find something she'd rather be doing.

She is so intelligent and high energy that occupying her mind is a necessity. However, she never learned how to play with toys. We are teaching her using model/rival and just making new toys seem like stuff WE would want to play with. This technique is also working for us when it comes to getting her to try new foods but there are some things that she thus far is pretty disinterested in.

I have read liquidspoof's post in this forum which was extremely helpful and we are already using the techniques described to encourage behavior Coconut already exhibits. (We reward her for saying her favorite phrase "Hi Coconut" and ignoring her screaming (turning our backs to her, ignoring her or eventually leaving the room but leaving the lights and/or TV on if it was on before the screaming started). Before we were using formal "time outs" for screaming which involved closing the door and turning the light off for 10 minutes but it became apparent that Coconut has a lot of anxiety about being left alone in the dark as she was put in a closet with her cage covered for punishment by her previous owner and in the end I did not feel that time-outs were a training technique that would work for us and it was making bed-time very scary for her.

Most training techniques say to encourage the positive and ignore the negative, but in Coconut's case the negative means she hurts herself. We have her in a collar so her chest wound can heal, but she has been traumatized by all of the medical stuff she's had to go through: vet visits, being medicated, the collar being put on and taken off etc etc. We can't simply ignore her bad behavior without some intervention, but our goal is to get her healed and out of the collar ASAP. Which means we need to encourage her to enjoy activities other than mutilating and plucking.

Since coming to live with us she has learned to shred all manner of things at our encouragement, we try to give her a constant supply of shreddables but for the most part this is a pass time she only really participates in if she's so frustrated that she'd rather be shredding herself. We are trying to incorporate shredding with foraging for food, and shredding with playing with toys that jingle or can be preened.

I'm interested in some resources or information specific to redirecting birds who pluck or maybe just your own experiences with a mutilating bird. And also any creative ideas on what our next step should be. She likes to raise her foot (usually to indicate she wants a scritch) so we are starting to encourage her to wave on command. Unfortunately none of the local pet stores carry foot or forage toys that are appropriate for her size so I am planning on ordering some online. Any "beginner" forage toy suggestions would also be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[mas]

Hi,

I've just joined this forum a few minutes ago - and this is my first post...
I'm also part of an excellent forum called grey forums (www.greyforums.net); which is a lot to do with African Grey Parrots, who are notorious for feather plucking - if you have a look at that website and search 'feather plucking' you will find heaps of info to assist you. Even though a lot of the topics are about African Greys, the info still holds true to any other bird, because the principals are the same.

Good luck!

[jenseits]

Thanks for taking her in and doing research on ways you can help her. It sounds like you do have a hurdle when it comes to removing attention for unwanted behavior. Training incompatible behaviors is a good start (e.g.,teach her to shred toys instead of her own feathers). I'd only caution about teaching non-prop behaviors (like a foot wave) because this can quickly turn into a begging behavior (i.e., your bird is waving her foot in the air 24/7 trying to get rewards).

In the clicker training group I belong to, they recommend teaching at least 3 prop behaviors before any tricks that don't require a prop. That's because the first tricks a bird learns tend to be their strongest behaviors and the ones they resort to when they don't know what else to do to get your attention/rewards. If you teach prop-dependent behaviors first, they can't perform the trick unless you make the prop available (i.e., you are in the middle of a training session).

For example, the first tricks I taught Stewie were: touch the target stick, put a ball in a cup, retrieve a plastic ring. He now does all sorts of non-prop behaviors on cue, but he won't just do them without being asked.

Trick training is great for helping to modify all types of behaviors, especially very smart animals because it gives them things to think about and process, so it helps alleviate boredome. That sort of mental enrichment has positive effects even when you're not in the middle of a training session.

Providing a lot of foraging options helps too. In the wild, birds spend most of their waking hours looking for food. In captivity, they have it provided in a bowl right in front of them, so no wonder they're bored. A lot of bird owners I know actually make their birds forage for the majority of their food. It helps them use their minds and get a lot of restless energy out when they actively have to look and work for their food.

There are a ton of different type of foraging/puzzle toys you can buy, but just wrapping treats in scraps of newspaper is a fast, easy foraging idea that doesn't cost any money. You can also thoroughly wash and dry some small, hard rocks/pebbles and put them in the food bowl with your birds pellets and force her to pick around them or move them out of the way.

Good luck. Please keep us updated on your progress.

[RubyMuse]

There is a great DVD called "captive foraging" and you can look up parts of it on youtube. You are doing a great thing and I am so glad you do not do the lights out and leave thing - that is actually not a time out but a punishment. You were smart to realize this and change it.

It has to be all positive all the way - no aversives or focussing on things you do not like which is super hard.

I have a feather picker also whose behavior is set in after years in a facility. I know she is behaviorally much better now except for the occasional plucking. One thing that works for me is to give her rope perches which she shreds - I just have to change them all the time but it is worth it.

Good luck! You are doing a great thing.