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Saturday, February 05, 2005
Feather Color
Every once in a while, a baby Eclectus will have abnormal feather color. The photo above is one of our females that had the prettiest yellow-orange head and brownish bands across her wings. We wrote Carolyn Swicegood to see if the change would be permanent and she requested and published photos on the Land of Vos under the Different Feather page. We called her Cinnamon Girl but it was only a stage name.
Tonight, Tanya called about the baby female Vos she is handfeeding. Apparently the baby has a greenish tinge to some of its red feathers. She thought it might be the aloe vera juice or maybe the baby was transexual. It makes for interesting conversation and outrageous blog posts.
When Susan Clubb was in town for the Mardi Gras Avicultural Conference she referenced unusual feather color as a hormonal trait. It seems that babies, when they are growing in feathers, have varying levels of testosterone and progesterone. This sometimes causes males to have some red feathers and females to have some green ones. Unfortunately, usually by the first molt the hormones settle down and the unusual feathers disappear, never to return.
There are some photos of permanent color changes on Carolyn's website. These birds are extremely rare and valuable.
- posted by J-Birds @ 6:38 AM |
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