Munch is a Self Mutilator! (781 views)

[Casey]

well today we decided to try preening type toys and things she likes to chew on, to see if maybe we can distract her from her feet.

so we changed her cage to nearly all natural, giving her many branches to chew and peel bark off of, which she has already been doing and has been chipping away at it. we got her a long birch branch and shes been loving it. we replaced her long rope perch with the birch and we replaced all her rope perches with natural branches, with the exception of two swings and her spiral perch. we gave her a poplar ledge instead of her fleece ledge. she seems very happy with the arrangement and ive only caught her chewing her feet twice today. i have a video i will post once it finishes uploading (taken before i added the last things)


here are photos of her new set up

[Casey]

got another video soon...

notice how little her beak moves. this is how she nibbles her feet!

[Casey]

and second video. she is doing this to her feather toy, but this is what she does to her feet! and she almost falls asleep a lot. its like a trance, like a baby sucking their thumb for comfort when they sleep...

[tippa]

Looks like she's keeping busy, that might take her mind away from nibbling her feet.

[Casey]

but it does seem more to me as well that its an obsessive thing?


hey tippa, would your quakers like those blue things? the blue thing i gave munch. its a brand new microfiber mop head, cut in half, but a full one could be used lol or any of your other birds? i hear quakers like odd things like that.

[tippa]

I too think it's an obsessive thing now that I have seen more evidence.

I have never use anything like that microfiber mop head with the fids before so I wouldn't know if they would like it or not. I will be at a look out to see if there are similar thing to the mop head for the fids, it is a very interesting toy idea.

[Casey]

i got mine at the dollarstore.

my friend has a cockatoo who loves them. thats where i got the idea from. he just LOVES pulling the pieces off lol

[Casey]

now the question is, how to deal with a behavioural mutilation problem

[marc]

Ciao Casey,
I'm sorry to read about this trouble; I would rule out that it is a diet trouble, since you are able to vary through a lot of good and healthy alimentation.
I think it is a behavior trouble but I doubt that a collar can help her,since the beak will be able still to reach her leg;
I'm pondering..if you apply a gel on her leg which has a bad taste then maybe she will quit to bother her leg;
Has you considered the possibility that she has micro mites on the legs? it would explain the itch too.

[Casey]

she doesnt really "itch" her legs. if you see what she is doing to the feather toy in the video, that is what she does to her feet... its not quite itching.

we are trying toys she can chew and preen more to see if those help, next step is getting bitter apple spray for her feet. so far the chewing toys and preening toys seem to be helping


she has done this behaviour since we got her as a baby. we had asked about it on another forum, i was told it was nothing to worry about. shows what they know


well from this experience, i suppose i can write up a good sticky for this forum