How To Make a Poncho For a Plucking Parrot: A Step By Step Guide with Pictures

The first is to buy your things. You will need:

• fleece - You can buy remnants from Walmart or any fabric store. Use fleece because it will hold up to lots of pulling and tugging from your parrot.
• toddler socks - Depending on the size of your parrot. Mine is a Nanday Conure, one of the larger conures so toddler or young child socks work best. For a smaller bird such as a lovebird, infant socks should work fine. 
• embellishments - Buttons, felt,beads, feathers...something big enough that they can pick at but not harm themselves if they get it off. 

Next, take your piece of fleece and fold it in half, like so...

Remember, my bird is a Nanday Conure, so I am using a piece of fleece that when folded measures 5 inches by 5 inches.

Then, you're going to make a neck hole in your fleece. An easy way to do this is to fold it in half again and cut the corner of the fold. Like this...

Perfect neck hole.

Now, if I was making a night time poncho I would stop there. Sisco will pull and tug at the turtleneck part and make it unravel. The poncho we're making is to be used during the daytime, preferably during supervision. I have yet to find a sock that won't unravel...

Anyway, next comes the sock part. You're going to cut the cuff part of the sock off for the turtleneck. More of the sock you cut, more of the sock is left exposed for unraveling... So, just try to cut as close to the cuff as possible. 

Next, we're going to sew the sock cuff into the neck hole. We're going to make knots as we sew so that with one tug, the thread doesn't pull on the neck hole and strangle your baby. Make tiny stitches because we don't want the stitches to irritate her delicate skin.

When you have sewn completely around, tie off under the sock cuff on the inside of the poncho. Again, we don't want that knot to irritate her skin.

Next, trim, if needed and embellish! Have fun and get creative. Think preening fun :)