Aloe Vera juice

[Girltron]

A little guidance on bathing with aloe vera juice?

 

I've got myself a gallon of the Lily of the Desert brand aloe juice. For the past several days, I've given Francis a spray bath with it, trying to be fairly liberal since I can't tell how much is reaching his skin. He prefers to be sprayed from underneath and he will fluff out his feathers some, but he doesn't really open his wings so most of it gets on his belly, tail, and the edges of his wings.

 

I'm trying to prevent feather chewing and plucking and I hope this will help resolve any dryness that might have caused him to pluck in the past.

 

My issue is starting yesterday I noticed his tail feathers especially have started looking a little piecey and bedraggled. It's almost as if the aloe is making him a little gunky or something. It's definitely not oily but maybe a tad sticky?

 

Would you recommend alternating water bath days with aloe bath days?

[Dave007]

The juice works best on any area that's not waterproof--upper breast, lower breast, vent area, front and back of neck and under the wings especially the skin where the feathers come out. The same applies to water. Any fluid sprayed on waterproof areas will only roll off and you get the best results from aloe juice by first bathing him with water and then saturating the areas above. You need to let your bird drip dry, no hair dryers. Those areas above will stay wet for quite a while which makes the skin supple and less itchy. If you have trouble spraying under the wing next to the skin, turn the mister nozzle to *stream* and squirt inbetween wing and his body. Use aloe liberally. The most important thing here is skin saturation.

You can do it everyday but actually, 2x a week does the job.

If you really think the aloe is *gunky* you can mix with some water but I think your problem is that your bird hasn't been bathed just before using tha aloe.

You need the facts here---there's 2 types of pluckers/chewers

1---acute plucking/chewing which happens periodically and then lessens.

2---chronic plucking/chewing which a bird does all the time and won't stop but that type of problem usually involves about 75% of all feathers. If you wanna let us see your bird to tell you, please post a few photos ( closeup)

Edited May 23, 2010 by Dave007

[Girltron]

Thanks! I never thought of using water first. I'll try that tomorrow. I didn't notice the feathers looking funny until I'd done daily baths for several days, so if I give him a rinse each morning before his aloe I bet it'll be fine.