I need some thoughts/help with a patient. 5 year old male barraband parakeet. Ca

小朱朱

I need some thoughts/help with a patient.

5 year old male barraband parakeet.

Came in because it was losing feathers. The owner saw it suddenly one day while cleaning the cage and has not seen the bird losing feathers gradually. The same day he found out the owner saw a lot of feathers on the bottom of the cage. Owner does not interact a lot with the birds at this point, only goes in to feed them if the cage is not cleaned.

He has two other birds (cockatiels) without symptoms. The males can fight sometimes.

The cage is 1x1x2m, and the bird can free fly at times. Eats seeds mostly, but can eat pellets.

The owner has not seen the bird plucking. The bird behaves like normal with the exception of losing feathers. Examination revealed less feathers on the stomach/chest, legs, back and head of the bird. The skin was normal and new feathers where about to emerge. Flight feathers are normal. Scrapings from the skin showed nothing unusual under the microscope. The examination showed no other abnormalities.

My initial thought was that the other birds are plucking him, so the owner has separated the birds. To begin with it looked like it helped, but after a while it lost a lot of feathers again. The owner can not find the feathers around the cage this time.

The second time I could find a few small papules on the skin, 0,5mm in size. They were filled with clear fluid. Microscopy showed cells with many vacuoles and poorly defined nucleus, see pictures. No bacteria were seen. Blood samples were taken as well.

Laboklin has suggested supporting the liver and that the bird is most likely just plucking itself. Is the bird just self mutilating without the owner noticing or am I missing something?