Stained feathers...

[Paloma]

Twitter is a little piggy and decided to land in a bowl of fruit salad. She was completely stained red from either the strawberries or cherries that she was attempting to steal from me. She managed to clean most of her feathers, but...now she has a red beard. Is there a way to clean this easily?

[pixibubbles]

I'd try just warm water and a cotton bud - if she'll let you. Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much. Especially if cleaning will stress her out.
I once had a purple and pink budgie for a week or so - he fell in blackcurrent juice lol

[Paloma]

I wouldn't care too much, but we're going to the vet next week. I try and have the fids look their best for the visit... you know, to show that we *try* to take good care of them. She keeps trying to eat the cotton buds, so I gave up. Not much stresses her out... besides us eating within view of her cage (ALL food is Twitter food).

I thought the pumpkin stained feathers were hard to deal with... this is even worse. Hee hee!!

[boomer girl]

I dont know if I would do this but have you tried a little bit of Dawn dish soap? They use it to get the oil off of sea birds and other animals that have been in oil spills so I would think it is somewhat bird safe. Maybe if you put a little in a bowl with water and use a cotton bud or small rag you could sort of wipe it off of her. I would hesitate to do this only because you said she keeps trying to eat the cotton buds.

Her little red beard looks sort of cute to me and I would think her vet might giggle a little bit when you tell them what Twitter did to get her red beard. It least she was eating good for her berries and cherries and to me that is taking good care of her.

[Paloma]

I didn't think of Dawn, but I used some of her Rain spray stuff and a little warm water on a rag. Maybe the aloe in the Rain helped? I got a few wing slaps, but I also got quite a bit of it off of her. She is pink, now.

Twitter sees bowls of food, and she can't control herself. It would be one thing to land on the side, but no, she climbs right in. We almost had a repeat of this right after I cleaned her up... my husband was eating yogurt, fruit, and granola. You know, bird food.

[Sinthea]

My old indian ringneck would run strawberries and cherries on his wings, back and where ever he could reach. >.> The vet would joke with me that I was trying to dye the bird red as I wasn't happy with a green bird. haha. He would never let me clean him off so he spent a lot of time as a red ringneck.