I only ask because he is an english pinhead. No, sorry. He is a porcupine. He has NO feathers on his forehead. NONE. It's ALL pinfeathers. He only has fluffy, feathered cheeks. The rest of his face are pins. Like, seriously. I've never, ever, ever seen pinfeathers this atrocious before. I feel like I need to scratch his head. Beck won't preen him much and he rubs his face on the bars of the cage. But he looks dreadful. I just want to do something about it. Man, I didn't know Poppy would be part english, but I've seen less severe full english budgies.

I've given him a bath. It doesn't help.

I feel like this is more of a personal choice. I personally would do it. I feel ike it would be beneficial and possible let him enjoy head scratches permanently. If i never brought Maya in the house she would have never let me scratch her head for her. Now she is a pro and is starting to come to my finger for them.

Okay, I might. Not to be mean, and I'm being dead serious here, looking at Poppy's face makes me nauseous. He is such a beautiful boy, but seeing him like that makes me a little queasy.

I would do it without any doubt!
Some of my guys are worse than others and don't have another bird who preens them. I roll them in the towel and they have to endure my preening hehe.
I tell you what, some of them, instead of being furious at the end of the session, hang around doing some general preening near me. The only one I have never done is Hamish and only because he's such a chicken I am afraid he'd have a heart attack at having been touched so closely. But I tell him every day (just to get some courage) and sooner or later he'll have to endure the "unpinning".
I love doing it anyway

Okay, I'll definitely do it then. But I need to wait a few days for those disgusting pins to grow just a tad so they don't look so gross. Man, freaking english budgies and their pins. Yuck yuck yuck.

Who knows, maybe he'll learn to like it and come asking for them. Beck sometimes gives a few halfhearted nibbles, but when he asks for some, Poppy is selfish and just preens himself, so Beck just doesn't really do it anymore.

I also hate pins. I don't have an English budgie so I have never seen a full head of them.

Do you know how to get rid of pins? In case you don't, you have to gently roll your fingers on each pin until it gets loose. Then you can slide them off. I like to give the pin to get bird to chew on, I feel like they will know what I'm doing and enjoy it more.

The crest is personally my favorite place to work on! I'm going to take s video of my preening the pins out one day.

Poor Poppy! While Waffles has had his share of pin feathers (and they never seem to stop, EVER), he has never had what you're describing. Again, poor Poppy!

I'm going to do it. It's not like a have a reputation with him to ruin anyways.

Then you've got nothing to lose than a potential to gain if you don't do it.

I personally recommend you take him to a room or closet that he has never been to before. I know you said you have a small house but anything, even a bathroom that he isn't used to would be really good. And obviously there shouldn't be any other birds in there or he'd be squirming a lot to try to get out than to enjoy the massage. Maybe you can also let him squirm out on your stomach and let him climb onto your shoulder.

He probably won't like it at first and will forget about everything once you let him go but keep at it once or twice a week and he will surely improve greatly!

I would like to do it with his friend near. When I cut Beaker's nails, Jaid was on my arm commenting on what I was doing to his husband. I love those crazy buggers.

When Jaid came over, Beaker stopped wiggling and held still, so I'd rather keep Poppy in the same room with Beck. It might keep him calmer to know his whole flock is still there. I'll probably get some english budgie bites though.