Bird picked sore under wing?

Question

Alright, so I just got a cockatiel about three weeks ago. He was found at my friends work, but he's really sweet and totally hand tamed.

He is often out of his cage, free to fly about in my room, but he loves being on shoulders.

My point in saying this is that I know he's happy. But about two days ago I noticed he had picked under his wing and it was bleeding. Now he is picking at it a lot, and I'm looking into getting a cone for him. But I noticed earlier today that his p**p is very runny and it worried me.

He doesn't show any signs of mites or anything, but I have recently changed the brand of food he gets from parakeet (the only kind I had at the time) to cockatiel, and I read somewhere that it might cause stress and birds often bite themselves from stress.

So I'm wondering: what could cause the picking/runs?

Answer 1

If it's both at the same time then it probably is the food; it sounds like something in the ingredients is really getting to him. If you mean an elizabethan collar, you needn't bother--AFAIK they don't even make those for birds because anatomically it wouldn't work very well. It wouldn't cure the problem, anyway; you want to cure the problem at its source, not just cover up the symptoms. But switch him back to the old food, and see if it helps. If it doesn't, take him to a vet.

Answer 2

Ok first of all it could very well be the food so trade back to the old food and watch him for a couple days and see if that helps. I had a cocktail that did the same thing her p**p was ok but she kept picking at her under part of her wing and it turned into a sore I put a cone on her and it seem to get better but there was a very small bump left behind I figured it was because of her causing a sore after it healed up I removed the cone she was ok for awhile then she started doing it again so I took her to the vet come to find out its common in cocktail's to form cysts on the end of the under part of their flight feathers I had it removed and she had to wear a cone for a week tell it healed up and know she's great.