I tagged as injured, but that's so anyone triggered by images of plucking can avoid it. He's not injured. He was, at most, sick.
The 3rd and 4th pictures are from December 2024. He had actually grown a few feathers back on his belly after a brief break, but was much worse within a week. Harley Quinn was 19 years old. He had started seriously plucking and we couldn't get him to stop. We'd been to 2 different vets and no permanent solution was provided. We had tried meloxicab (3 ml) and gabapentin (0.02 ml), but by themselves they weren't working. He'd get better, then worse, again. He eventually had NO feathers from just below his chest - including his legs, his entire back under his wings, and was starting to completely pluck everything from his wings (except the flight feathers).
We finally found a new vet and they suggested several things:
- Higher dose of gabapentin for pain
- X-rays to check for abnormalities (5th & 6th pictures; I could hear him SCREAMING from the other room when they took the x-rays. It was terrible)
- Treat for bornavirus
He was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis from the x-rays, given a couple injections of celecoxib for the bornavirus (yeah, he screamed from those, too. He wouldn't even look at me for a couple hours afterwards), and permanent daily medications:
- 0.04 ml gabapentin twice a day (general pain; he's 21 years old - hatched in March 2005)
- 0.03 ml isoxsuprine hcl twice a day (for the arteriosclerosis)
- 0.02 ml celecoxib once a day (for the bornavirus)
The first 2 pictures show how he's regrown ALL his feathers. He's even doing short flights and is overall acting like a much younger bird, again.
I'm not saying this treatment will work for other cases of plucking, but it worked wonders for Harley.
Edit: corrected dosage values