WHO'S a pretty boy then? The owner of two balding birds is hoping alternative medicine may be the key to making them beautiful again.

Julie Piercy, who runs the Pampered Parrots sanctuary at Slingsby, has enlisted the help of kinesiology therapist Mark Northcote to cure Rebel the parrot and Wally the cockatoo.

"The two birds were both rescued and they have psychological problems which means they continually pull their feathers out," Julie explained.

"The hope is that they will learn when to stop preening themselves and that'll stop them going bald."

Mark, a paramedic, has been practising kinesiology, a therapy which involves manipulating muscles and lymph glands, for three years.

"I have tried it before on animals - it can work with a range of psychological problems," he said.

"The only way to describe it is that currently Wally and Rebel's internal off-switches, which stop them when they have sufficiently preened themselves, have been distorted somehow.

"This means they don't know when to stop preening themselves. My job is to re-align that off-switch to where it should be."

Mark runs a practice in Appleton-le-Moors, called Bodyenglish, but he normally practises on humans.

"If practised correctly it can help address problems like asthma and arthritis," he said.

"It can take quite a few sessions but the results are often very positive."

Updated: 10:57 Wednesday, November 14, 2001