![]() ![]() Does she have any toys that she can manipulate? There are some great foraging toys out there where you have to turn wheels, open doors, etc to get food. Goffins are extremely smart and extremely mechanical. Is she truly barbering? My 'too is sometimes a rough preener, and his feathers can look a bit wonky but he's not actually barbering. Do you pay attention to her when she barbers? I know it's hard to ignore, but sometimes fussing over barbering actually reinforces it. I think it's always good to rule out medical issues first, but I suspect this is behavioral. I think every cockatoo owner should read this: The Inconvenient Truth About …Cockatoos – Pamela Clark, CPBC () I’m happy to hear any advice this group may have. She fluctuates a few grams here and there but that’s about it. I weigh her daily and she has not lost a significant amount of weight during this time. I tried to simulate a natural environment for them to play and explore. It’s decorated with naturalistic wall hangings and I have perches and toys hanging from the ceiling and on the walls. She has a dedicated bird bedroom that she shares with my Caique. I change her toys or move them around weekly. Her cage is pretty big and has a lot of toys, especially foraging toys, scattered throughout. She gets hours of out of cage time a day because I work from home. ![]() ![]() Some other details that might be important - she is fully flighted and a great flyer now but was clipped when I got her. I know this is a lot of info, but does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for me? I’ve done everything the vet has suggested or that I could scour from the internet to help Charlie stop biting her feathers and be a healthy independent bird. The vet now wants to do bloodwork to make sure it isn’t a medical issue that she might have missed before. 2 ml of Gabapentin twice a day while I’ve been weaning her, but it hasn’t stopped the problem. However, the feather barbering is still happening and seems to be getting worse. She is eating seeds and foraging during the day and maintaining weight. I have gotten Charlie off of her AM feeding and her evening feeding is cut in half. I’ve been working with the vet through phone and email on this for about two months with a couple in person checkups thrown in as well. The vet said that the barbering is likely due to her age and not yet being weaned, and encouraged me to scale down her formula (I went back to syringe feeding at this time) and get her to forage and eat solid foods. She began slightly barbering her feathers around this time, and I took her to an avian vet. I took this as a sign that she was becoming an independent eater and so started to slowly offer her formula in a bowl in the mornings. I did notice a couple of months ago that she seemed to want to eat the formula out of the cup instead of from a syringe. ![]() I read a lot about abundance weaning and how that is better for their psyche, but now we’re at about 19 months old and she still would rather eat formula. I’ve hand fed her twice a day for the last year +. I realize now parent raised and already weaned when sold are the healthiest options for them. She was 4-5 months old, hand raised and not weaned, but I was home all day (still am) and had plenty of time for my new friend. I got Charlie from a breeder at the start of the pandemic. I’m at the end of my rope and feeling really guilty about some FDB that has emerged in the last two months and hoping this group can help me see anything I might be missing. I have a beautiful Goffins cockatoo named Charlie. ![]()
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