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Charlie Parker is almost a year old and we're dealing with his first big moulting with lots of pin feather scratching from both of us and frequent baths (once a day from me with the spray bottle, and sometimes three or four swims in his water dish. ) I'm wondering if anyone else's bird chews his feathers. He doesn't try to eat them, but if he finds one on the cage, on me, or even a down fluff floating through the air he grabs at them, catches them in his beak, then chews a while and spits them out. Is this just normal play or could there be any biological reason?

Billy has done it a few times with his big feathers. Maybe he is thinking ooooo one of my feathers needs cleaning hang on its not attatched

Our baby crow does this all the time. He actually hides his feathers so no one can steal them from him!

Hane and Tsume will do that as well. I think they just like to destroy anything they can get their beaks on.

Ruffle often does the same. He'll preen a loose bit of down out of his feathers or catch some out of the air and then play with it for a while. Roll it up into a little ball, nearly spit it out, chew it a little more, hide it in his beak, nearly spit it out, etc. Especially around bed time. When I try to take it out of there, doing what I think is a favor to him, he gets very angry! It's his and I figure he knows what he's doing so I just chuckle and let him play with it.

It's like birdy chewing gum!

Yep, my 2 love to 'catch' each others down, well they mostly get angry at them. But if I pick up a fallen wing or tail feather, they both fight over who gets to 'preen' it first. I love how they twirl them around in their beaks hehe. Exactly like birdy chewing gum!

I asked my hubby about this (he knows more about birds and animals than I do) and he says birds will chew on their feathers during a molt to get as much calcium and nutrients out of the shaft of the feather as they can. So if you see your fids chewing feathers, it's a good thing!