Self-mutilating Peahen, anyone seen or heard of this?

[KsKingBee]

So any idea how to apply moisturizing lotion to a peahen's wing?

Mineral oil in a spray bottle. I used to use mineral oil for ear mites in rabbits and it will soften and moisturize the skin.

 

[Garden Peas]

What about supplementing her food with some cheap tuna canned in oil plus some vitamin E oil (I've been squeezing it out of capsules onto bread). I would suggest cat food, but I think the tuna in oil will have a higher oil content...

 

[Garden Peas]

Yes, but what about when the hen preens the mineral oil and ingests it? Is that safe? And won't it foul up the feathers and induce more preening? Like those birds that get into oil slicks?

 

[DylansMom]

What about supplementing her food with some cheap tuna canned in oil plus some vitamin E oil (I've been squeezing it out of capsules onto bread). I would suggest cat food, but I think the tuna in oil will have a higher oil content...

I will try some cheap tuna, the tuna cat food doesn't seem all that oily, and I have the vit. E softgels to supplement with. I wasn't actually going to try putting a lotion on her, that was really just a joke. If the Blue Kote and tuna don't help, she's on her own. This girl does not like being handled and I'm not going to stress her that much. She's been doing this for about 5 years and so far she has survived it, so I may just be making mountains out of molehills.

 

[Garden Peas]

And here I thought you were going to take up pea-wrestling to deal with winter boredom...

I actually think lanolin and a q-tip might not be crazy... And isn't that emu oil stuff supposed to be magical or something?

 

[DylansMom]

And here I thought you were going to take up pea-wrestling to deal with winter boredom...

I actually think lanolin and a q-tip might not be crazy... And isn't that emu oil stuff supposed to be magical or something?

It's kind of funny you said that. We moved a half dozen or so around to different pens on Mon. I was still pretty sore from my less than graceful fall in the barn, so I let hubby net the crazier un-imprinted ones. I just walked around picking up the imprinted ones and carrying them from pen to pen. the difference is so dramatic. I don't know if you have any imprinted ones or not, but I'm sure Kathy knows what I am talking about, judging from all those scale pics. If these imprinted birds stay nice and unaggressive, big "IF" there, I may try to sell off some of the wilder ones and replace them with Imprinted ones. So far everything is easier with them.

 

[Garden Peas]

It's kind of funny you said that. We moved a half dozen or so around to different pens on Mon. I was still pretty sore from my less than graceful fall in the barn, so I let hubby net the crazier un-imprinted ones. I just walked around picking up the imprinted ones and carrying them from pen to pen. the difference is so dramatic. I don't know if you have any imprinted ones or not, but I'm sure Kathy knows what I am talking about, judging from all those scale pics. If these imprinted birds stay nice and unaggressive, big "IF" there, I may try to sell off some of the wilder ones and replace them with Imprinted ones. So far everything is easier with them.

Sadly, no, none of my birds will let me pick them up. I started out with the first ones that I hatched rather unexpectedly, and was starting to hand-tame them. They were sitting on my lap and eating from my hand, but just as I was doing that, I read some stories about overly-aggressive peas... and Pealover130, who was quite a bit younger, was having serious trouble with the chickens, including a couple of ridiculously aggressive bantam roosters... She was too afraid to even feed them for awhile. So I decided maybe it would be safer if the peas didn't lose all their fear of humans and here we are, nearly 4 years later, and nobody behaves imprinted. But Peanut used to sit on my hand and my shoulder when he was first hatched. I miss that...

The wee peas that got here this fall were totally wild, but are gradually calming down. They've learned that bread is a treat, and carrot peelings... they wouldn't even touch bread or chopped eggs when they got here.

Pealover is older now, and all the aggressive chickens are long gone, but she is still pretty nervous about the male peas when she goes in the pen. Getting pecked by the chickens left a bad impression on her. I do think that any new peas I hatch are going to get imprinted, and I am working to get the older ones more hand-tame, because I would really like to be able to weigh these guys, and right now, I'm afraid they would get hurt if I tried to catch them. I think I need to buy a net... if only for emergencies. But I'm thinking that using the net might undo all the taming I'm working on... What's your experience with that?

 

[thndrdancr]

How bout giving her sardines in olive oil? An oil that won't hurt and the sardines have lots of nutrients?

 

[thndrdancr]

Oh and regarding mean peas, my first 2 boys, Pete and pistol, aptly named were raised fairly tame but I wouldn't say imprinted. Through a bizarre series of events, which also included me bringing home a beautiful male pied.. Pistol went bad.

He kept trying to beat up White Lightning, so I finally grabbed him and put him in a pen by himself for a few days. He was never the same, and it got to where he wouldn't let us mow the lawn or feed the chickens. If you think a mean too is scary, try taking on a ticked off peacock. He didn't really get mean til he went to the neighbors and couldn't find his way home, but I think overall, he felt unwanted and that started the whole thing. He was so very chock full of personality that it broke my heart.

 

[Trefoil]

I have 4 of their adult offspring here, all full sibs to Nanu and so far none are doing this, the oldest ones are 6 now. She still has access to her outdoor run, and now that Tsunami has gone to her new home momma hen is allowed to go out anytime she wishes. There is plenty of dried out grass and weeds out there, so I would think hay would be redundant at this point.

I'm leaning toward skin condition, I would think boredom would result in year round picking, not winter only. My skin gets dry in winter as well, and both Arbor and snowshoe's birds pick in winter as well, so that seems like a pretty good possibility. So any idea how to apply moisturizing lotion to a peahen's wing?

If its a skin condition deal, would vitamin E help? Wheat germ oil? Both work for mammals, but I've had no experience using it on birds.