No abstract

These results indicate that feather-plucking parrots have higher baseline corticosterone levels and suggest that they do indeed have higher chronic stress levels than non-featherplucking parrots. Many factors could contribute to this stress: for example, housing conditions, lack of interactions with conspecifics, the effect of hand-rearing versus parent-rearing, environmental enrichment and physical health. Such variables need to be investigated systematically in order to determine the causal factors. This study demonstrates that feather plucking in parrots can be related to stress levels, and that this can be effectively determined in these birds using a non-invasive method.