{"id":93482,"date":"2020-12-04T15:45:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T21:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=17499"},"modified":"2020-12-04T15:45:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T21:45:02","slug":"should-i-be-worried-about-the-bald-spot-on-my-older-conure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=93482","title":{"rendered":"Should I Be Worried About the Bald Spot on My Older Conure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barbara G. has a concern<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tootsie is a forty-two-year-old green-cheek conure who has lived with me for forty-one years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The top of her head is completely bald, with front red feathers remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n

She sleeps a lot but is otherwise active.<\/span><\/p>\n

She enjoys her regular food along with a handout from her person.<\/span><\/p>\n

She does not pluck her feathers, loves annoying me, and is a first-class cuddler.<\/span><\/p>\n

Could this be age-related?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

She is never caged and has the run of a large bedroom with ample perches and reacts with her eyes and tail when I speak to her.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She gets the very occasional taste of vanilla ice cream and enjoys an infrequent pizza crust.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How worried should I be?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hi Barbara,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I must say you’ve done a fantastic job for the bird to have lived as long as it has<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wouldn’t be too concerned at the risk of sounding flippant she is living on borrowed time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t think you should be worried.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her head may be itchy and she is rubbing it when you’re not watching.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Try a bath or gentle misting on a regular basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A few drops of coconut oil that had been melted in the microwave for about five seconds then added to tootsies food can help her skin condition.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Try those two courses of action and see what happens in the next 30 days.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also, watch a little more closely to see if you discover rubbing her head in a favorite place around your home.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stay safe<\/span><\/p>\n

Best<\/span><\/p>\n

MitchR<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you so much for getting back to me about Tootsie’s bald head.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She seemed to be failing the past couple of weeks and died on Saturday, November 28.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fortunately, I was able to be with her around the clock, spending time stroking her head, massaging her toes (her favorite), and telling her what a wonderful bird she was.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had a spell of very labored breathing and passed away a few minutes after that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With help of a neighbor, she will be buried tomorrow; right now she is doing a Monty Python and residing in my freezer.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you for mentioning that she was on borrowed time because I’ve had an industrial-size case of the guilts, thinking I had done something very wrong that led to her demise. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am grateful for all the years she lived with me and terribly sad that I will never hear her screaming or doing a lot of laundry because it always seemed like a good idea to poop on me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thanks again.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My house is so terribly quiet.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With best regards, Barbara<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are so very sorry for your loss Barbara <\/span>
\n\u200b<\/span>
\n\u200bTootsie lived a charmed life<\/span>
\n\u200b<\/span>
\n\u200bMitchR & Catherine<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara G. has a concern Tootsie is a forty-two-year-old green-cheek conure who has lived with me for forty-one years. The top of her head is completely bald, with front red feathers remaining. She sleeps a lot but is otherwise active. She enjoys her regular food along with a handout from her person. She does not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","_thinkrank_schema_form_data":"","_thinkrank_selected_schema_type":"","_thinkrank_additional_schemas":"","_thinkrank_canonical_url":"","_thinkrank_og_title":"","_thinkrank_og_description":"","_thinkrank_og_image":"","_thinkrank_twitter_title":"","_thinkrank_twitter_description":"","_thinkrank_twitter_image":"","_thinkrank_imported_from":"","_thinkrank_focus_keywords":[],"_thinkrank_focus_keyword":"","_thinkrank_robots_meta_enabled":0,"_thinkrank_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_advanced_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_exclude_from_search":0,"_thinkrank_exclude_from_archives":0,"_thinkrank_primary_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[196,231,225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-behavior","category-conures","category-feather-plucking"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/green-cheek-conure-branch-600-7.jpg?resize=600%2C445&ssl=1",600,445,true],"list":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/green-cheek-conure-branch-600-7.jpg?resize=463%2C348&ssl=1",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/green-cheek-conure-branch-600-7.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/green-cheek-conure-branch-600-7.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,false]},"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phcfkq-ojM","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/green-cheek-conure-branch-600-7.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/124876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}