Fred
This is a story from 2012
Birdlink Sanctuary in Weatherford, Texas
A few weeks ago we had a Lesser Sulfur Crested Cockatoo surrendered to the Sanctuary. HER name is Fred. We actually have very little history on Fred. She is 43 years old but all we have is the last three months she has been passed around to three different homes. Fred is a sweet, talkative bird doesn’t bite or scream but she did one thing – she ripped the skin off her belly making a hole 6 inches by 4 inches. That doesn’t sound good but when you see that her whole belly is 6 inches by 6 inches – you realize what a dreadful gaping hole it is.
Fred was surrendered to us at Birdlink Sanctuary because the family that had her was shocked by her mutilation and had no idea how to stop it.
So this is where our story begins. Over the next months, I journaled every step we took to keep Fred alive. And yes this is life or death for Fred. Left to her own devices she will either die of an infection or bite into a blood vessel and bleed to death. We have to “think outside the box” and try to stop this behavior.
The day we met.
The family arrived at Birdlink Sanctuary to surrender their cockatoo. They had only had her for a little while and didn’t have much history. Another family member had passed the cockatoo to them. That family member had only had Fred a few weeks. They knew her age. They said she had started to pull skin off her belly so they had put a collar on her to stop her. But Fred was able to remove the collar and would rip at her chest at night, ever enlarging the wound on her belly. They were frustrated and didn’t know what to do, so they brought her to me.
Before me stands a Lesser Sulfur Crested Cockatoo, reported to be 43 and female. Her entire abdomen, and legs have been plucked free of feathers. She is wearing a collar that has rubbed off the feathers and bruised her neck. There is a large bloody area on her abdomen where Fred has removed skin. Her feathers are beige, dull and rough, she smells strongly of cigarettes. With the help of intern, Haley, we begin bathing Fred in a constant flush of warm water and Dawn dish detergent. It took many baths over many days to get rid of the smell and some of the nicotine staining off her feathers.
It seems very likely that her feather plucked skin has been irritated, stung, by the toxins in the house of her previous owners, the chain smokers. Fred had spent YEARS in a house that was filled with cigarette smoke. And nicotine is a poison that can cause vomiting, diarrhea, tachycardia, tachypnea, neurologic signs like tremors, ataxia, weakness, seizures and cardiac arrest and even death. I guess Fred was lucky she only tried to tear her skin off.
