This page will contain some tips and pics from my experiences with my own birds.  Pickles is the resident Quaker - and a vocal holy terror.  We had an issue with her beginning to pick out her back, belly, and leg feathers about six months ago.  I got on the forums and got some advice - then we cleaned her cage top to bottom, provided new toys, all the recommendations. The picking stopped. We thought perhaps she had been bored.

Recently she started picking again - and guess what - after spending time watching what was going on - it turned out to be the shredded paper we were putting in her cage! Like lots of folks, we shred all our home documents and thought the shredding would be good absorbency in the pan below the grating of her cage (she can't reach it).  We had been using crushed pecan shells - and thought this would be a good environmental thing to do - and a little less expensive. Turns out that the small mites you see on old paper, newspaper, etc., are ALWAYS present in the majority of cotton papers!  These were nipping her. They evidently don't stay on the bird - just nip and move on!  What a nightmare!  We started figuring it out because she just did a one-note squawk over and over and over.  Then I washed her down and she stopped - for awhile.  Then she started again - so I started looking closely at her and the paper - and found the little buggers! Got rid of the shreds, cleaned the cage, gave her a good rinsing, and put down the pecan bedding instead - no picking since and one happy bird!

Some of her picked feathers were pulled out completely and will never grow back.  That makes me so sad because not only was she lovely - but I know it meant she was really being tormented!  How awful!!  But feathers or no - she is lovely to us! :-)  This was before the picking.  I'll put up more photos soon! 

Current vocabulary: 

• Que Pasa?
• Everett (our son's name - spoken with a decided Texas Twang - like EHHHV_U_RETT)  She calls his name wheneveer the telephone rings - because it was always for him when she was little and we would holler his name up the stairs to tell him!
• What you talkin' about?
• Who's a good bird? (She answers her own question with "Pickles")
• Who's a pretty bird? (She answers her own question with "Peachy's a pretty bird")  Peachy is our cockatiel.
• Where's Pickles?  Where's Pickles - we have to hide our face - then when we lower our hands - she says "THERE she is!"
• Time to go to bed (she tells us this each night when she is ready to go to bed!)
• Take a bath?  She tells us this when she wants a bath - or when she just wants us to interact with her.
• We say "Who is it?  Who is it?", then she answers back "Pickles".  Then we say "Are you sure?  Let me see."  Then we make a gasp like we can't believe it is her.  Then she says "It IS Pickles - Hi, Pickles!"  Then she laughs - ha, ha, ha.  She loves this little conversational exchange - especially at night right before going to bed
• She laughs just like me - and even after she has gone to bed if we laugh at something on the TV she joins in.
• A few weeks ago someone on TV was introducing several actors and they were saying in excited voices "Hi, I'm Sally", and "Hi, I'm Bob".  She was covered up for the night but after a few of the introductions had been made, she suddenly burst out "Hi, I'm Pickles!" - in the same tone as the actors.  We had some people over and we all just cracked up!  She hasn't said it again since!