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Cleaning up for a show - can't get her white! Ideas?

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calicokat

calicokat

Songster
10 Years
Apr 2, 2009
1,336
17
171
azalia, indiana
Well, DD has signed up four birds for an open show here on Saturday.
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We started bathing them last night. Blues and black of course look good. But the little white hen still has yellow - UGH!

We used Tide with Bleach Alternative. Got the hen wet, put the Tide on and let it soak for about 8 mintues. Then got her more wet and worked it up like shampoo. We even added bleach to the second rinse tub. I took a paint brush and painted bleach on her tail feathers and let it soak a bit. I think all that acccomplished is that her feathers look dry and brittle today
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Any folks out there have better ideas for brightening our girl up for the show? I'm guessing the yellowing is from sun (she free ranges) &/or the corn in their feed. I don't give them scratch or any other corn because I'm concerned about it showing up in the white feathers.

I (& DD) would sure appreciate any tips or tricks that you all might have
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the bleach has damaged the feathers, I am sure. I can't imagine what it did to her skin being soaked in bleach.

maybe a better and less painfully damaging way to go would have been a whitening shampoo made for animals instead of bleach.
 
Okay first, DO NOT use bleach on your girl!! All it will do is make her feathers gross plus that can't be good for her!! Now this is what i do with my white silkie: I use in the bath water, a couple squirts of shampoo made specifically for white dogs (cat or horse works fine too) i also add a few squirts of tear stain remover (for dogs and cats) let her sit in this and massage it in to her feathers for awhile (at least 10 min.) after you rinse her gently soak up the excess water on her with a towel then spray some showsheen (for horses) on her and rub that in. Then blow dry (if you blow dry). The showsheen will help replace some of the oil you bleached out with the bleach.

Good luck and have fun at the show!!
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I show horses, and when you have one that is mostly white you have to find products that are effective AND affordable. Plus, the mare had a reaction to Cowboy Magic Green Spot Remover. I use Simple Green. It is a biodegradable cleaner that you can buy in a big jug at Costco for not much money. I use it full strength (and my sensitive-skinned mare did not react to it).

I would give that a try, then follow up with ShowSheen or Lazersheen.
 
You can also use a few drops of blueing in water. This works especially well for removing yellowing. My old paint horse used to LOVE getting into the Oklahoma red dirt muddy pond and he'd come out looking like a sorrel instead of a splashy paint. I used bluing on him all the time.
 
Try the advice listed above, then after she's nice and white rub Vitamin E oil in her feathers. You'll want them to be rather oily. Let them rest like that for at least twenty minutes, and use a clean rag to rub off the extra oil. If she's still too oily to the touch, spritz apple cider vinegar mixed with water, rub with a clean rag, spritz again, then rub.

I always use a high quality Vit E oil on my birds, the same stuff I use on myself. Get it in the cosmetics isle. It doesn't have that long-lasting oil feel that other oils do, because it's the actual oil needed for the skin so it soaks in a ton of it in five-ten minutes.

I'm not speaking from tons of show experience here, but I use the oil on my birds both after bathing from a show (I just put some down their first primary feathers, near the base of their tail near the oil gland, and rub it on my hands and put a light dose all over their body) and if I have a bird that's molting I'll put it on their primary feathers near the base so they soften up and come out faster and easier. I also use it on combs, wattles and legs. Honestly I think good quality olive oil works better on the legs - the vit E oil soaks in too fast and doesn't have as much softening effect on the hard scales.

Hey, you know better next time
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hard lesson learned! No bleach on animals - especially birds, it takes a terrible toll on their feathers. The vitamin E oil should help.
 
*sigh* would you bath yourself with bleach?

Get an animal shampoo made for white coats. Now you have to replace the oil in the feathers and hope that you have not damaged her skin. And for heaven's sake make sure all of that bleach is rinsed away thoroughly.
 
Omg I won't even use bleach on my floors because of my cats and dogs inhaling it, I can't Imagine putting it directly on them !!!
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