Graywings,

If your parrot is doing harm to himself, don't hesitate. We have 2 parrots who pick. One is a female Eclectus, Becky Jo (sp?)and one is a African Gray, Socrates.

We have a collar on Socrates. We chose not to collar Becky because she flies. Socky was a rescued and never flew. We literally spent thousands of dollars trying to keep Socky from doing harm to himself. He has had many many lab tests. They both came with my BF, so I really don't know what has caused the issue. My BF has searched hours over the internet, has spoken to many experts and to this day tries whatever holistic cure he could find. They both still pick. Socky actually picks to the point of sores under his wings (which takes major visits to the vet and major $$).

We tried a bubble collar which only one Vet in our area uses. He still can get to his feather with it. So now we reverted back to cone shape collar.

Some may disagree with collars. In the case of Socrates, nothing has worked so far. I am interested to hear Oceanna's take.

Oh, Jerseygirl, thank you for posting. She has had it on now for almost a day. Did Socky get better at maneuvering? My little girl has fallen off the perch a couple times. I had her sleep in her travel cage last night so she could perch but not fall.

The vet tech instructed me to have her wear it with the circle back, covering her shoulders (don't know what you call them on birds). She couldn't walk with it like that because she would step into the collar. She ended up a couple times in the bottom of the cage on her back. I finally flipped it so that it was fanning forward like dogs wear them. Then I called an emergency vet, and they were able to suggest a way to make it less like a cone and more fan shaped.

I cannot see her wearing this long term. Whatever mental condition caused her to pick, this situation can only be worse for her.

Socky wellwith it. He learned how to maneuver. He climbs up his cage and out the door. He still falls sometimes.
Does your vet do the bubble one. It's less cumbersome. It might work. We did not have luck with that one but every bird is different.

If you don't mind your bird being bald and she is not harming herself in anyway, than take it off. Becky is bald with a beautiful face. She does not harm herself.

Unfortunately she has mutilated herself on her chest under the wings so much that she has lost mobility in one wing. She is on antibiotics and pain medicine, and the vet is working to remove the necrotized tissue. I point blank asked the vet about her prognosis and she said, "guarded."

However, today she climbed up the rungs of a domed cage. This was about an hour after getting the pain meds.

I will look into a bubble collar - thanks for the tip.

Oh gosh I'm sorry to hear your little one is having such a rough time! My first suggestion for you is to join PickinParrots and talk with them. I'm not allowed to give the addy here but I'll bet you can find them. That is ALL they talk about and they've talked about it for years and years, and quite a number of years ago I urged them to work with Texas A&M student vets... and I think maybe they did. Anyway, if anyone knows what is most likely to work, they do. Get on there and tell them your bird's full history and they'll ask you questions and make suggestions.

Yep, unfortunately, I do have experience with this. The vet made this circular collar out of an old x-ray film. Gandy (Amazon) had caught his foot in a cotton rope and must have had internal pain in it, because the skin wasn't broken until he went after it and opened it up. The e-collar was to keep him from amputating his own foot. The problem went on and on for miserable weeks, involved an overnight visit with the vet up all night watching him, and every time he'd be healed and we'd take the collar off, he'd open it up bloody again with his beak, darn him.

Finally I did something very unorthodox. I put NuSkin on his owie. I turned a fan on him and also blew and blew, terrified that even the stinky fumes from it would kill him. It worked! That finally made him leave it alone and it healed. I'm not recommending this, just telling you what I did. Clear it with your vet if you're even thinking about it.

I know just what you are going through, believe me. I lowered Gandy's perches close to the cage floor, but he still did some climbing and my heart was in my throat watching him. I padded the floor of his cage up with a thick bed of bath towels to cushion his falls.

A better option for you, and I'm surprised your vet didn't mention it, is a tube collar. It's a huge improvement over the e-collars when it comes to the bird getting around. It definitely keeps their beaks off their chests. And it's something you can do right this minute now. Here is a great writeup with super photos...

Good luck and please keep us posted, would you?

Here is a link that might be useful: How to make a tube collar

oceanna - thanks so much for the link to the tube collar. She was doing well enough yesterday that I decided to leave the collar off overnight. I think she did some minor preening, but nothing serious.

We are going to the vet this afternoon. I'm hopeful that she will see improvement.

Have either of you ever considered or given your bird Haldol?