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Question:

May 14, 2021

My Male Parakeet Aster


hello i have a question regarding my male parakeet. He has begun plucking the feathers out from around his neak and under his beak. His 2 female friends are ignoring him as well at this point. they were rescues and i know very little of their history other than they are about 2 and have been together for over a year and i have only had them about two months.I did have to separate him from the girls as they were not only ignoring him but pecking him as well. I am monitoring his food intake (he is on a seed and healthy pellet diet as well as fresh organic fruits every now and then) as well as water intake(I dont use tap water i buy distilled and they get their vitamins in it when needed)and seems fine on that end. i am worried because i think it might be stress related or environment related(i dont use perfumes or anything related as im allergic and i try to keep it a good temperature). I plan on taking him to a vet in a few days but i guess my question to you is what are your thoughts and any tips to a new parakeet owner?


Answer:

Hi Heather,

I would give him bottled spring water rather than distilled water. There can be issues with using distilled as drinking water. Tap water is fine if you drink it. You can also use filtered tap or purified tap, which are the same thing but one comes in a bottle.

The pellets are the best diet for him. If you offer loose seed, this can dilute the nutrition he gets. The best way to offer whole seeds is with our foraging diets – Nutri-Berries, Pellet-Berries or Avi-Cakes. These are formulated the same as a pellet, but they are not ground up. They contain whole seeds with the hull removed. The problem with loose seed is that is has the hull, so any added nutrients are lost when the bird removed the hull. Dark leafy greens and chopped veggies are also good, but fruit should be offered in small amounts, a couple of times a week. The pellets and foraging diets should be 80% of his diet with greens, veggies and fruits being 20% of his diet.

Having him checked by the Vet is the best thing. While it may be behavioral, it could have a medical cause. One problem is you have an odd number of birds together. This generally means the birds will pair off, and the single bird gets picked on. Even if they were all the same sex, this is what happens. Since your girls paired up and pick on him, it could be that they sense he isn’t healthy. Or they may not both be females – it can be hard to determine sex in many of the parakeet color mutations these days. Or maybe the two girls just get along better. Once you have him checked by the vet and get his feather issue sorted, you may want to consider getting him a companion. I would not put him back with the two girls again. He could be picking his feathers because he is stressed about them picking on him.

Bird Food Guide

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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