Chewing moulted feather shaft?

[Z28Taxman]

Whenever Ditto moults one of his larger feathers (flight, tail) he will chew on the shaft where it was attatched and make squeaking noises. It's like he's cleaning it off before he drops it.

Does anyone elses lovie do this? Or is he just strange? :lol

[butterfly1061]

Piper does this too. Molly & Daisy do it sometimes. Daisy attacks any feather I give to her after she's dropped it. I try and get the big feathers away so I can use them for Dream Catchers. :)

[Z28Taxman]

Piper does this too. Molly & Daisy do it sometimes. Daisy attacks any feather I give to her after she's dropped it. I try and get the big feathers away so I can use them for Dream Catchers. :)

Ditto will give them to me after he's done. After he tickles me with them of course. He loves to tickle my face with them. Down feathers just get shoved up my nose. :lol

[Janie]

BB and Shy usually hold the feathers they have shed in their beaks. If they are nice ones that can go into a new dream catcher (one of Miss Shy's creations that I will order soon) I remove it from their beak. If not, it goes to the bottom of the cage and into the vacuum! Oliver, on a rare occasion holds one in his beak. He drops lovely feathers but doesn't seem to like to hold them in his beak.

[Mandolin]

Kameko will practically dive bomb to catch a feather if it falls out then chew on it. She will chew on ones she pulls out everytime. I was wondering why she did this too so i asked my boyfriend who is a third year biology student. He told me that birds can do this to get some of the nutrients back since it is a big bodily process to make all those feathers and they try to conserve any energy and nutrients possible especially when molting. That is at least true for other birds that he has studied and is very likely true for lovebirds as well. :) :) :)

[Z28Taxman]

He told me that birds can do this to get some of the nutrients back since it is a big bodily process to make all those feathers and they try to conserve any energy and nutrients possible especially when molting. That is at least true for other birds that he has studied and is very likely true for lovebirds as well.


That was my guess as to why he does it. I was going to title this thread "birdy recycling". :lol