In light of the fact that there may be some RNG involved and we're not sure how exactly the fruits work, I'm altering my plan and I'm going to use 5 apples (or however many it takes to get the message about growing new feathers) after I get my results from the plums to see if I can take my bird back to the base yellow color. Once that experiment is done, I'll use the lemon to reset my bird's color and try the same process with a different fruit.

If there's anyone who would like to try and help me with this, please let me know, and we can coordinate our efforts.