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 ISSN 1492-8132 Issue Number 59, Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved, No reprints without permission holisticbirds.com Are you interested in natural health for you and your birds? Then this website is a good place to start! It's the home of an online quarterly newsletter, and has some wonderful articles in their archives - for example, I'd recommend that the article on Avian Fatty Liver Disease from the Spring 2002 issue be required reading for anybody who keeps one or more birds. There is some excellent diet and nutrition articles, and others featuring specific species or remedies. I could go on and on, but, better if you go see for yourself. This one is a must-see! "Bach Flower therapy involves preparation of essences from 37 different flowers of wild plants and trees, and Rock Water from a certain spring as the 38th essence. The positive vibrations extracted from the plants are transferred by dilution into the spring water and conserved with alcohol. The resulting essence concentrates are stored in stock bottles. "The Bach Flower remedies have the effect of positive regulation of a negative emotional condition, improving the general state of health. From this there follows, indirectly, a greater resistance against emotionally produced physical disorders. But it is wrong to hope that organic disease conditions can be cured with Bach Flower therapy. "In combination with other therapies, however, they can help to shorten the healing process. Also, the Bach Flower remedies will not compensate for damage that has occurred through incorrect care and maintenance. "Bach Flower therapy is highly effective in treating behavioral disorders and psychological problems, especially in parrots. It is especially effective for anxiety, aggressiveness, acclimation problems, and feather plucking, and can help in difficult situations." (Dr. H.H. Reckeweg, 1905-1985) SCATT is a miticide based on a drug called Moxidectin. This formula was developed for and tested on birds, and is currently the most effective treatment available for eliminating these pests. Moxidectin drug kills mites by interfering with the transmission of nerve impulses in the insect, causing its paralysis and death. Like mammals, birds do not have the same nerve transmission system as the mites, and so the drug is harmless to them. There is quite a residual action of this treatment so that re-treatments need only be done once every three weeks, if necessary. (usually it won't be) For more info visit birds2grow.com - Products - Flock Talk - Birds Board - Articles - Canary Cam - Canary FAQs - Questions - Ask Robirda - Bird Links - Privacy Policy - Sponsorships - Site Map
Your Birds, With Love
Our next issue is due Dec 8th - until then, may you and your birds enjoy all the best of everything!
Robirda
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 For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
"She asked question and after question and then would ask more questions after my reply. She gave her time to help me help my bird. Most of all, she has the uncanny ability to advise without criticism... truly remarkable! "My suggestion? If you don't have confidence in what you are doing, 'Ask Robirda.' She saved my bird." When you need help with housing, feeding, care or behavioral questions, you can get a personal answer from Robirda. Learn more here. "I don't have toxic plants, but my birds would chew the ones I have. I now have large oven roaster plastic bags over all my plants. The birds chew over the plastic, but cannot ingest it, or chew my plants. Apparently, these bags 'breathe', allowing the plants enough air." This might look a little odd, but sounds to me like a great idea for keeping your plants and your canaries apart - not always an easy task, with the greens-loving canary!  The quest to understand the causes behind feather-picking is most often undertaken in an attempt to find a remedy that will work to help solve this most mysterious and all-too-common affliction in pet birds. Here is the story of how one caretaker found and implemented a most unusual and - for one bird at least - effective solution, using extracts of...
by Wilhelm Kiesselbach Ever since I became involved with parrots, the issue of plucking and feather mutilation, among other serious behavioral problems we so often seem relatively inable to help, has bothered me deeply. Behavioral problems, plucking among them, can be due by medical causes, but it is also known that in many cases emotional trauma is the cause. There is absolutely no question that the thinking and feeling processes of parrots with their evolved instinctive reactions to their surroundings, are still largely beyond our comprehension. We do know that parrots bred in captivity are more likely to have problems with feather-picking than those caught in the wild. We also have a pretty good idea that their very early experiences - weaning, fledging and socializing - appear to have a major influence on their later view of the world, right down to their interactions with others. They are basically wild animals, and at the same time, more like children than any other pet we are ever likely to meet. Bonnie Munro in her excellent book "My Parrot, my Friend" extensively quotes from child psychologists, incorporating their approach to child care into her advice for raising parrots - with good reason - it works! I have always had the feeling that there must be a way to address their emotional distress and find a way to change behavior caused by that distress. If is possible with people, why not with parrots? Of course we can't take our parrots to an psychiatrist, and we can't ask questions. However, by interviewing the care givers, it is often possible to diagnose the cause(s) for a problem with reasonable certainty. The question that brings many of us up short is: "What now? What do I do next?" Our helplessness in the face of the bird's misery soon becomes our collective burden. I can't count the times I have been told, "I don't care if he or she plucks, I love him or her anyway." Countless times that has been my advice when nothing else seemed to work - including occasions when an avian vet shot them full of hormones or fitted them with a collar, but at best only temporarily eliminated symptoms of a problem that we all know lies much deeper, symptoms that in most cases eventually reappeared. About 2 years ago, I rescued Simon, a then eight year old male Eclectus. Simon had been plucking his feathers for three plus years at that point. When I first met him, he looked like a Tyson chicken - totally naked except his beautiful green feathered head, (where he could not reach the feathers to remove them) and a couple of bedraggled primaries. I took him to a vet who did all the prescribed testing, but the results were negative - there was no health problems to be found. I had rather expected this, and was not much surprised. From what I had seen in his former home and heard from his previous caregivers, this was as classic an example of a severely emotionally disturbed bird as I have ever seen. Simon's 'baggage' was considerable, and it manifested itself in passionate and continuous feather mutilation; his interest was turned solely towards the plucking and removal from his body of any feather he could reach. There was no slowing him down. None of the more commonly suggested treatments, from changing the diet to daily baths and ignoring his behavior, had the slightest effect. More, when I picked him up he continuously regurgitated for me and tried to mate with my hand. He would not play with his toys - he had never seen a toy, and did not have a clue what they were for. He would not climb all over his cage, as a healthy parrot will - instead, he would spend all his time in one place, on one perch, busily plucking away what remained of any of his feathers he could reach. I watched him for about a year and a half, hoping that a high humidity environment, combined with a better diet and diversionary entertainment, daily baths, aloe misting and the company of other birds might effect some changes. Much to my disappointment, I had no such luck; I saw absolutely no improvement. Simon is not the first emotionally disturbed parrot I have had in my care. The symptoms range from severe phobia through an entire spectrum of more or less severity, to plucking and even self mutilation, while the parrots in our care mystify and frustrate those of us who love them and want to help. In the midst of my search for more effective ways of dealing with this most knotty of problems, I came into contact with some German Holistic Veterinarians, who pointed me towards researching the use of Bach Flower Therapy as another means to treat pets with emotional disturbances. These remedies have been used in Europe for years and are widely recognized for their benefits - with humans and a variety of pets, (predominantly cats, dogs and horses), being the beneficiaries. I eventually spoke to Bach Flower people in the UK and a variety of veterinarians in Germany and the UK. Although their experience with parrots is rather limited, I became convinced that a real opportunity had presented itself. The challenge in treating with Bach Flower Essences is that the reasons for the emotional disturbance(s) causing the negative behavior must first be diagnosed accurately. Each of the Essences has a relatively narrow focus and going to the root of the problem is very important. Without that, the therapy has much less chance to work. I strongly suspect that the complicated emotional and instinctive profile of parrots, alongside the fact that few of us ever know our pets' entire history, tends to combine, with the results that many people have trouble recognizing their own mistakes, can't diagnose the reason for their bird's problems, and don't have the patience for the treatment. This can easily lead to abandonment of the entire process, and is probably a major factor in why this therapy is not more widely known and used. In effect, the requirements called for in order to be able to effectively treat with Bach Flower Essences, are empathy, intuition, knowledge of the patient, consistency, and patience, patience, and more patience! Since I knew some of Simon's background, I had a pretty good idea what the different underlying reasons for his behavior were. I selected six of the Bach Flower essences two months ago, and started treating Simon. The results were astounding, and much better than I had hoped for! Within just this short period of time, he has almost entirely stopped plucking, and is beginning to grow some of his feathers back. He now sports a complete tail, a full set of primaries and is all over his cage. There will probably always be a few bald spots in his plumage, as he will almost certainly not re-grow all of his feathers - continuous prolonged chewing can damage the feather follicles, and in that case, even when the chewing and plucking stops, there may be too much follicle damage for regrowth to occur. But over time, even some of this damage may eventually heal, partially at least. The rule of thumb seems to be that one month of treatment will be required for every year that the bird has been troubled. Simon still has a few months left to go - and this unusual treatment has already shown itself to work, and to work well, too. Bach Flower Essences are not a wonder drug and won't cure medical problems, although they can and will help in accelerating recuperation from illnesses - but when used as they are meant to be, the Bach Flower Essences offer real hope, and represent a viable alternative for healing, to those of us committed to helping our birds and helping others learn to deal with their birds' problems.
See for yourself how Simon has improved! by Wilhelm Kiesselbach
Bach Flower Essences This is the web site of the US affiliate of the Bach Flower Essence company, that also carries a list of the 38 essences, along with information on their application and various forms of treatment. I myself try to never get caught without (at the very least) some 'Rescue Remedy' on hand - it is absolutely the best resource I have ever found for dealing with shock from injury or trauma. But why stop there? These remedies are a wonderful resource for aiding in the healing of emotional disorders and/or imbalances in birds, animals, and humans!
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