Broken Pawn: The Trouble With Harry

These pictures from November, December, and February show Harry's gradual loss of feather cover on his neck...

  I’ve written previously how one of our two cockatiels was killed by Daisy in 2014 when he flew too close to him, leaving us with one cockatiel named Harry. Eventually, Kathy and I decided not to try to get Harry a new cockatiel to be friends with because the process of introducing cockatiels to each other is long and has no guarantee of success. We also found out that while cockatiels are happier when they bond they don’t have to bond with another cockatiel – they can bond with humans as well.

  Since then Harry and I have bonded – every morning during his outdoor time he sits on my finger and I rub his head and feathers for about 20 minutes until he gets bored and ambles over to his play area. It seemed he was happy with the arrangement until last November when I noticed he was getting a bald spot on his neck. I kept an eye on the situation and saw that new feathers would start to grow back and would disappear before transforming from porcupine like quills to actual feathers.

  It seemed that Harry was pulling out his feathers. I looked up cockatiel feather pulling on the Internet and the possible causes ranged from boredom to parasites to sexual frustration to stress to a change in environment to diet. Nothing has changed in Harry’s environment and he seems to relieve his frustration easily enough by rubbing on a cloth toy in his cage like he has dome for years. I saw no evidence of parasites so I went to the Petco in Ames and got some advice, vitamins for his water, some new toys to give him something new to play with and be less bored by, and a spray for his feathers in case he was pulling feathers because of itchy skin.

  I put the new toys in Harry’s cage and play area and gave him vitamins right away but didn’t feel comfortable using the spray because winter has come with a vengeance and the spray warns against letting a sprayed bird get chilly. Harry liked the new toys and didn’t balk at the vitamin infused water but he was still pulling his new feathers out and occasionally some of the existing feathers around his neck.

  Our local vet doesn’t handle birds very much but recommended the small animal hospital at Iowa State University that has veterinarians that specialize in birds. I made an appointment for Harry on January 18th. I filled out an eight page questionnaire about Harry’s habitat, habits, and health and talked with a veterinary student about Harry and the best way to prepare Harry for travel. It wasn’t very warm on the day of Harry’s appointment so I warmed up the car for 20 minutes and put Harry in a cat carrier covered with towels. I put Harry in the passenger seat, removed the towel covering the door of the carrier so he could see me, buckled him in, and off we went.

  Harry handled the trip very well with only a minimum of squawking and we arrived in Ames 45 minutes later at 9am. Harry and I checked in and went to the Avian waiting area until Lynette the vet student brought us into an examination room. Harry stayed in his cage and I waited in the exam room with him until the vet came in and said they would bring Harry to a back room to get blood and stool samples. Harry went to the back and Lynette told me that I could go get lunch because while Harry would quickly generate stool samples in no time it would take over an hour to get enough blood for a sample.

  I went to Wal-Mart and ate lunch at Jimmy Johns and got back to the veterinary office an hour after I left. After a few minutes I was ushered back to the exam room and met with Lynette the vet student and two of the doctors. The doctors said Harry had no parasites and was in generally good health except that he weighed 90 grams which was a few grams overweight (90 grams is 3¼ ounces) and that his feathers were darker and had less spring than they would like. They attributed this to his diet of cockatiel food from the Wal-Mart which they said contained almost all fatty seeds and recommended a pellet based diet and even gave me some samples and some instructions on how to wean him off his seeds and onto the pellets because just like people, cockatiels prefer fatty foods over healthy pellet based foods.

  The doctors told me that Harry’s throat swab and stool sample both had high concentrations of yeast which led them to the conclusion that Harry had a yeast infection in his throat which was causing itching and his feather pulling. I was told the samples had been sent to the lab for confirmation but to help the infection I should switch his normal tap water out for a mixture of distilled water, apple cider vinegar, and honey. I was pleased to find out Harry was in good health and happily paid my $400 bill, put Harry back in the carrier, buckled him in the car, and we were home around 1pm.

  I changed Harry’s water with the distilled water/apple cider vinegar/honey concoction and started mixing in his pellets into his food. While Harry was super about taking his trip to Ames, he was less than happy about his new food and water. Harry would still sit on my shoulder but he resisted all my efforts to rub his head feathers like he used to. You could say he was an angry bird.

  This went on for around a week and then I got a call from the Lynette the veterinarian student to tell me that Harry didn’t have a yeast infection after all. It seems that his samples in the lab were tainted by yeast which lead to the false conclusion. I was glad to hear that Harry didn’t have a yeast infection but this left us right back where we started with the exception of knowing that Harry was in generally good condition except for being a couple of grams overweight. Of course if the doctors could be wrong about the yeast infection they could be wrong about Harry’s good health but I believe the doctors are genuine in their interest about Harry’s well-being.

  I decided to get Harry back on his fatty seed and tap water diet and after a couple of days he was back sitting on my finger enjoying having his head rubbed and whistling back and forth with me. Harry is at least 12 years old and cockatiels live in the wild for 10 to 14 years so it is possible that he is just reaching the end of his lifespan and his feather-pulling is some age related thing. On the other hand cockatiels can live 20 or more years as pets so I may have Harry for a number of years. My plan for now is to enjoy Harry pulled feathers and all and start to spray his feathers with the solution from Petco when the weather gets warmer.