FEATHER PICKING AND MUTILATION

Self-directed feather picking is the action of plucking or chewing feathers or down on any part of the body (apart from the head). This activity can lead to self-mutilation of the skin and the muscles that lie underneath the naked area. The only form of feather picking which is taking into consideration and discussed in this chapter is the self-directed feather picking and mutilation.

Feather picking and mutilation are most commonly seen in cockatoos, African grey parrots and macaws. According to Wedel, feather picking has never been observed in the wild (Wedel, 1999). It seems to occur almost exclusively at night (Meehan et al., 2003).

Feather picking very often begins at the time when the bird reaches its sexual maturity (Wedel, 1999). This behavioural problem seems to be linked with the human mental disorder "obsessive-compulsive disorder" (OCD). OCD is related to dysfunction in the brain areas responsible for the selection and sequencing of behaviour. It has been suggested that a similar neural disorder may underlie feather picking in parrots (Grindlinger and Ramsay, 1994).

However, this statement must be considered with precaution, as feather picking (as stereotypic behaviour) probably has a similar mechanism to stereotypy in cases of human schizophrenia and autism (see text about stereotypies further down).

According to Lantermann, negligence in three main aspects of bird-keeping can cause feather picking:

a) the size of the birds' cages;

b) the parrots' high sensitivity, intelligence and extreme conservative behaviour (all especially well developed in grey parrots) and

c) finally the birds' high social needs which are very often not taken into consideration when dealing with captive parrots (Lantermann, 1997).

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