Here is a recent picture of Max, taken yesterday. As you can see from her pictures, she has some feather destruction issues. They started January 2, 2006 when she bit off about 30 feathers at the shaft, leaving her with a down chest. That winter steadily worsened, as she removed all of her outer feathers on her back, chest, and legs. Pretty much everything she could reach, with the exception of her wings.
She had a clean bill of health from the vet. It was at this point that we switched her diet, and tried MANY other things. Then, about a year later, I read that, in greys in particular, when they bite the feather off (as opposed to plucking out the whole feather), it's often due to lack of humidity in the house. Max's plucking coincided with the first winter in our new house, so we got a humidifier, which greatly improved things. Every winter, she has continued to bite off a few feathers, but nothing like that first winter!
In any case, she is molting now, and has, so far, been leaving her feathers alone. This is the most fully-feathered she's been since January 1, 2006.
Beeps has been in a particularly playful mood since we've returned. He's been showing off for us, flying more than ever, and regaling us with exclamations of "Pretty baby cakes!" and "Hi Beeps!" I took these yesterday, as he was jumping back and forth between the rope figure-8 on his stand and the cup holder, doing flips on each of them.
His white chest has been kind of peachy lately. We can't figure out why. He doesn't have any new toys, and we can't see anything that would be rubbing off on him and dyeing him. Calypso is as white as ever, so I don't think it's anything in their diet. We're going to keep investigating and I'll report back if we figure it out!
On the knitting front, I've still been knitting. One of my goals for 2008 was to learn to knit a hat. I made the hat below for my mom, from some yarn that she'd bought for herself. It's a super-easy pattern, found here:
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