This, too, is normal and all part of your bird's innate survival mechanism. Birds have two to three thousand feathers, and a healthy bird will keep them all in magnificent condition. In the wild, feathers are critical not only for flight, but also for temperature regulation and courtship displays. Feathers mean the difference between life and death, so over the course of their evolution, birds have learned to take great care of them. When a bird begins to pick at, pull out, or destroy its feathers so that its appearance begins to look ragged or tattered, the behavior ceases to be normal.
Feather picking can result in bare patches of skin, or even breakage in the skin itself.
To decide whether your bird has a feather picking problem, you can look at its head. If another bird is picking at the feathers of a cage mate, however, the feathers can be damaged anywhere. Whether a bird is picking its own feathers or the feathers of another bird, feather picking can quickly become an obsessive, destructive compulsion, one akin to human nail-biting. The underlying causes of feather picking can be either behavioral or medical. The first step in trying to cure your pet is to isolate the problem.