Lately, B has had ragged feathers.

This was the feather coming in. It came in kind of crooked and it was very ratty. It was lost just yesterday. His downy feathers just look dry, and when he shakes or takes off he looses little feather particles. Is his skin irritated or something? I tried to get him to take a shower with me, but he wouldn't get wet. He didn't even want the mist spray I rebound off my shoulder. Am I just being too worried?

When my birds have new flight feathers coming in it frequently looks messy like that. I'm not completely sure of the reason, but I suspect that it's because they're clipped and the new feather rubs against the body a lot instead of being protected by the other wing feathers. Lone wing feathers like that also get knocked loose rather easily because it's one long piece sticking out by itself. An unclipped bird doesn't have this issue because the existing wing feathers help support the new one.

So I think he's probably OK. But this is the time of year when a lot of people are running the heat in their homes and that makes the air very dry. It wouldn't do any harm if you wanted to run a humidifier, or give him a mist bath once or twice a week. If he won't cooperate you can always give him a "you have no choice in the matter" mist bath. That's where you lock him in the cage and use a spray bottle to spray mist above him so it falls down like rain. Be sure to take out the food, the cage papers, and anything else that you don't want to get wet.

Hmm. Ok. I only got a little worried because he didn't want to get wet. He's never not done that before, so I started to wonder if something was up. I didn't know that about the feathers or really stop to think about it like that. Thank you.

Sometimes birds just aren't in the mood for a bath. When I start spritzing my birds it's very rare for all of them to get excited about it, there's usually a few birds that look disgruntled. But those very same birds might enjoy it the next time, and someone else will be unhappy.

It looks like a new feather growing in to me but time will tell. Either way, I think it's normal.