When it comes to feathers, you’ll have 1 or 2 molts a year. You’ll all of a sudden notice that your feather collection that has mated with the dust bunnies will all of a sudden be rather large comparatively. Some birds have real issues with molting. They become cranky and uncomfortable so make sure you are aware of this and handle them properly. Don’t get mad at them if they’re feeling bad and won’t cooperate with you.
Feathers streamline the bird for flight and it also insulates them. They have blood feathers, pin feathers and down. They may have more but those are the main ones. We have a bird who has plucked since he was 1 year old. If a bird every becomes so bad that he is bleeding and tearing his skin, using coconut oil may be your only option for otherwise he may die anyway. Things like Neem Cream are not advised because they have chemicals in them that the bird can ingest but in a dire situation, drastic times call for drastic measures. If you are to use these items, do so at your own risk.
The reason that oils like coconut and Neem Cream are not to be used is because oil, like all petroleum products have certain physical properties. Petroleum products like to form a single layer. If you have ever dripped a drop of gasoline onto the quarter panel of your car when taking the nozzle out, you’ll notice that the little drop slowly turns into a large stain that soon evaporates and goes away but it does that because its physical property is to form a single layer. This is one of the reasons that oil spills in the ocean are so devastating. They cover such a wide area because they’re forming a single layer. The good news in that is because it’s a single layer, once contained its rather easy to clean up for the most part. But because of this physical property, that single layer on a bird means that it will overtake every feather on your bird until it can spread out anymore. This is bad because when a bird’s feathers are covered in oil they lose their insulating properties and the bird can freeze to death.
When Herbie was still a young bird, only a few months old, we took him to our in-laws for Christmas. Since he was clipped, he clung to us and our clothes while we went on doing Christmas activities. My mother-in-law cooked a turkey with her classic homemade gravy. Herbie lost his balance off my wife’s sweater and fell right into the dish of gravy. Gravy is animal fat… oil. My wife tried to wash him off in warm water as best she could but the house was cold. He lost his insulation so fast because of the oil that once the warm water stopped he got so cold he began shivering. We got a towel and wrapped him up in it and were breathing on him to get some warmth into the towel. He started shaking very badly. Luckily I thought fast and got a hair dryer. Since hair dryers can get hot and burn skin, we had to carefully expose him to the right amount of heat to start warming him up and dry him off. We probably had that on him for 20 or 30 minutes. He finally came around but one simple slip at the wrong time and we could very well have had a horrible Christmas to remember forever. It just goes to show that the smallest things can cause you to lose your precious feathered friend.