Animal Stories

I got Sprout as a rescue in June 2021. I knew he had a history of plucking but nothing else about his past. I hadn’t had any experience with a plucker before but I was prepared to deal with it, hoping that I could help him stop but accepting that it is an extremely difficult habit to break. My studies for a Bachelor of Animal Science and work experience in a zoological setting helped me understand the importance of enrichment and a good diet in caring for non-domesticated animals like parrots. This is a big part of why I started For The Parrots to share that with others.

It was a very easy transition for him and I am amazed at how far his feather growth has come!

Over the past year, we seemed to go through the same cycles; he would pluck his chest bare, and even most of his back, he would start to grow some feathers back, and then next thing I know, he’s bare again. I was making sure to have him on a good diet consisting of mixed chopped vegetables and Vetafarm’s South American Mix pellets as his main diet, with seeds and nuts given in foraging toys and for training. I also provided him with plenty of enrichment, mostly in the form of a variety of foraging opportunities and plenty of toys to shred (in the hopes that he would shred the toys instead of his feathers). This seemed to help a little, but we would get stuck in the same cycle again. He seemed fine until there were many pin feathers, which he would get irritated with and pull all out, including the few feathers he had let grow in.

In May of this year, I discovered that Vetafarm had released a new pellet formula, Vetafarm Parrot B-Calm, advertised as a calming formula for stressed and anxious birds. I hoped this could be what Sprout needed to make it through the irritation associated with new feathers growing in. Sprout has been on this new pellet for a month (and enjoyed it straight away; it was a very easy transition for him), and I am amazed at how far his feather growth has come! He has allowed more feathers to come in than any other time in the year I have had him. We will continue to feed these pellets, and I look forward to seeing more progress!