Tail Feathers

[Guest smokey]

Wutsup everyone, so my grey... his tail fethers are looking real messed up, raggedy... when just a few weeks ago they were perfectly inline and had no sign of disorderly arrangment... is this part of molting? what can be the causes? HELP!?

[BMustee]

Have you given him a good bath sense they have gotten raggedy looking?

[lovemyGreys]

As Berna asks, how often do you bathe/spray him ? Greys can play a little rough sometimes & knock their feathers which give them that raggy look Plenty of spraying to encourage him to preen them.

[Lupa]

Shani's feathers are also a little raggedy, she has a steam bath every morning (sitting on the shower door) and I give her a bath every weekend in the winter.

 

She is still a baby, I read that babies tend to make there feathers raggedy when they are young, while learning to preen properly and get around there cages. Does anyone know if this is true?

[BMustee]

Elmo sits on the shower curtain when I take a shower and the steam is not enough. The amount of dust on their feathers keep any moisture off their feathers. All parrots need a good soaking bath...down to the skin. Elmo HATES spray baths and it takes a long time to get through the dust. Nevjoe posted how he gave his birds their baths and it works GREAT for me as well. Fill the bathtube enought to come up to your birds chest and plop them in. Elmo never seemed to get as wet as I would like till I started doing this. He had two new tail feathers coming in that were curved and the barbs were not tight. After his bath they are the picture of perfection. Baby birds do tend to have frayed and broken feathers because of inexperiance, but that is one more reason a good bath is so important.