"Poor Poor Pitiful Me"

Poor little Steve. His feather plucking got worse as you can see. The vet says he is a healthy sweet little bird, no apparant health issues. He gave us some meds to put in his water in case it is some digestive thing whose name escapes me at the moment. He said in birds it can cause itching rather than the normal digestive upset you see in other animals and humans. Dr. K said that the abx are kind of broad and pretty harmless so it was worth at least treating just in case.

The plucking has been progressive from the base of the tail, then his chest, and then he started in on his wings. Dr. K said the fact that it was so symmetrical indicated behyavior rather than illness - but that his little oil gland seemed a little swollen and I am supposed to put warm compresses on it several times a day - this sounds much easier than it really is. He was worried that Steve might begin to bite himself and get and infection and then we would be in real trouble so he made this collar for him. Oh yeah, Steve is thrilled. Actually he has settled down with it a bit, the first day I was terrified he was going to kill himself flailing about. Dr. K also felt that perhaps with the collar we could break the cycle before it became ingrained behavior.

It is very hard thing to deal with and no real answers. Another possibility is Steve is in love with Doug and is *ahem* frustrated - I feel bad for Steve but this concept strikes me as laugh out loud funny. Some birds never stop, Dr. K says he has plenty of healthy happy bald birdie patients. I would rather not have an uncooked chicken wing on a stick for a pet, but we love Steve and if he never gets his feathers back we will deal with it.