im a mean, mean bird momma

I feel sooo guilty. I put a vest on my bird today. She has been plucking for a while now, and it was putting a huge strain on her system as her body tried to grow all those feathers back in at once. The other 2 birds are fine, and they all eat the same diet, so it shouldn't be a dietary thing. And she has plenty of toys, just as many as the others, so it shouldn't be a boredom thing. I didn't realize for a while how bad it had gotten... She pulls them out while they are still growing, still in the shaft. When they still look like quills instead of feathers. She grabs one and yanks it out and immediatly screams because it hurts. And when I see her do it I always tell her "no." She does know the word no. If she's chewing on paper, or getting into something she's not supposed to, and I say NO, she stops. But when I tell her NO plucking, she just goes right on doing it like she can't hear me. It's like she can't stop herself, she's addicted, like a self mutilator. And I feel so, so horrible that I can't make her stop.

So today I put a vest on her. There's no way to cover every inch of feather space, but I did cover her chest, which is the main area that she plucks. I had to hold her down, screaming and crying and giving me that "Why are you doing this to me mom?" look. It just broke my heart. I almost couldn't finish doing it because I started crying. She stumbled around awkwardly on my bed, desperatly chewing at it, trying to pull off the safety pins that hold it together in the back, tripping over her own feet. She just kept running around in circles as though she could somehow run away from this horrible thing. It can't be comfortable for her.

And it is a HUGE risk because there is a good chance that she will just start plucking the places that she CAN reach like crazy. And even after I take it off, she might not stop. But I had to do something.

Because today I noticed a patch of wall that was slightly tinted pink, because when she yanks out the pinfeathers, and screams, she shakes her beak, flinging the bloody thing out of the cage, and against the wall. It has been hidden by my closet door, which is always open. I closed it today and discovered the bloody mass of feathers.

I just went in to check on her, and she was sleeping peacefully up on my top shelf. Who knows how she got up there, but she seemed content. She opened her eyes and stepped right up on my hand, without even paying attention to the vest. I put her in her cage and still she didn't pay attention to it. Hopefully she's learned to ignore it, because she may be wearing it for quite some time.

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