So I've been having trouble keeping baby Alex clean. When he eats, he gets he food all over his face and chest.

I managed to get it off his face by dipping my fingers in warm water and gently rubbing the spots where it clumped. That worked successfully, but the chest feathers are still pretty bad. I did the same to them, but couldn't get it out completely. I got it to a point where I thought he could get it out himself. Instead, the feathers dried and hardened, and got stuck to his Chest. Now he won't come near me, or any bath I prepare for him.

I'm sure he'll eventually stop being mad at me, though I don't think he'll ever want to take a bath again. Is there an easier way to get it out of his feathers?

Unfortunately there isn't, unless Lucy decides to preen him. Other birds can be very efficient at crunching off the dried stuff, but when we humans try to do it we usually end up accidentally pulling the feathers out.

Lucy does preen him on occasion, but the parts she preens makes me wonder if she's actually preening, or trying to play with his feathers. She tries to preen his wings and tail feathers,

Why those areas of all places she preens is beyond me. If she ever does try to preen the food out of his chest feathers, then it would be up to Alex to let her do it.

I see sprays at pet stores that are apparently supposed to help clean bird feathers. Makes me wonder if that stuff is safe, let alone if it'll work for this kind of situation.

The sprays you see are for giving an ordinary bath to an adult bird who isn't particularly dirty. Plain water does the job just as well and with fewer questions about safety.

When I have to clean a baby with caked-on dirt, I find that a Qtip soaked in warm water seems to be the best way to get the area really soggy. But it takes a LONG time to to get the crud really soft, like 10-15 minutes, and the baby does not enjoy it. I've gotten pretty good at keeping them clean when I feed them, but sometimes there'll be an accident in the nestbox, like someone pooping on someone else's cere and blocking a nostril, or a parental spill that has caked on the baby and Shodu doesn't need the additional encouragement to yank out a few feathers.

If you think you can keep him clean once you get the crud off then it might be worthwhile to do it. Otherwise it might be best to just let him stay dirty until he's weaned, and either give him a bath then or pull out the messed-up feathers so he can grow new clean ones.

I've been able to keep his face clean with a regular feather soaking. It's mainly the chest that seems to have the most trouble. It doesn't help that Alex is starting to learn how to bite. He used to just nibble, but now he's actually starting to press down. If he starts to bite harder than he is right now, it will make this a lot harder than it already is.

Don't give him the opportunity to learn how to bite you! If he's starting to get nippy, then use a towel or something so that's what he sees and bites instead of your fingers. And seriously consider whether it's worth the aggravation of doing this, or if you should just wait for him to wean and then decide whether to do something or let nature take care of it. It's always possible that he'll figure out how to preen it out himself.

Another alternative to washing or feather plucking is to carefully cut the clumps out with scissors. He'll have feathers that look barbered until he molts, but as long as he has enough feathering to hold in his body heat it won't cause any problems. It's no worse than what Shodu does to her chicks lol.

Ive seen people gentle tie tissue or paper towel around the baby's neck like a bib during feeding.

Kitchen roll or a soft towel around his neck...
will keep the feathers clean... easier to hold the baby bird too with the towel around hid neck..

I suppose I could wait it out. It's just that I've seen him constantly try to preen those feathers, but to no avail.

Well, he's still mad with me. So mad that he didn't want to eat. He kept flying away from me. His feathers are looking better though, so he seems to be preening them.

Actually, I've been trying to get him used to eating from the spoon, so I feed him both through the spoon and the syringe. Usually I can just hold the syringe and he'll stand there by himself. I had to hold him in place this time.

But though he was too mad to just let me feed him, he accepted more from the spoon than he did the syringe. Lucy was on the counter because she likes to play with things on there, but she decided to join in and eat from the spoon as well. Then she started chewing on the syringe for the sake of chewing on something. I hope her eating baby food is ok though. It seemed to somewhat influence Alex to eat more off of it.

He still didn't eat nearly as much as usual, but perhaps that's a good thing. Right now, he's eating from his pellet bowl. Usually, he does eat out of it even with a full crop from syringe feeding (he'll actually start crying if I don't place him in front of it), but he's eating more than just a few pellets. It seems we're finally moving forward.

I'm glad he's eating it off the spoon though. It'll keep his feathers clean without us having to go through the trouble of getting it out by hand.

For whatever reason, Alex seems to think that cleaning is the worst thing in the world. Be it me just wiping his beak or cleaning his feathers, he hates it.

Not wanting to be restrained for syringe feeding is a good sign! My chicks all become rebellious about being held when they reach fledging age, and that's why I switch to the spoon at that point. Alex had a rough childhood which probably put his emotional development behind schedule, so it took him longer to reach this stage. But now he apparently HAS reached it, so this is a developmental milestone.

It's OK to let Lucy eat some formula off the spoon. You wouldn't want an adult bird to eat a lot of baby food every day of their lives because it's too high in calories, but it won't do any harm as a minor temporary part of the diet. And it sets a good example for Alex.

Babies are pretty good about keeping themselves clean with spoon feeding. They just shake their heads and any formula stuck to the beak hits the wall lol. Sometimes they'll clean bits of fresh formula off of each other too, so don't be surprised if you see Lucy licking up spills around Alex's beak.