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Feathers: Bronzing?

taxidermynerd

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I was looking at Jade today, and noticed she had all this black on her feathers on her right wing. This isn't new feathers, so I'm thinking it's bronzing? I'd like to hear what yall think, or if it could be stress/inadequate nutrition.

Background: Jade is 7 months old, and has lived with me for just over 4 months. She eats mostly pellets and chop, with 1 nut (almond, cashew or pistachio) every day, and occasionally a few seeds (for training).

I only touch her head, so it can't be from me. She does like to lay on her back to play with toys, and she climbs around a lot. She is very happy, constantly on the move and destroying toys and beating up her stainless steel bell.

I'm thinking it's probably a combo of her being a baby who doesn't totally know how to preen properly yet, and her playing rough constantly.

Here's a picture. She looks like hell in this one, she just took a bath before that picture and she's also going through her first molt.

What do yall think?

20200918_223910.jpg
 

Ember-Tiel

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I'm not a conure expert, but my green cheek conure, (also named Jade) experienced this a few weeks ago. It seemed to have come from rough playing, since he liked to lay down and roll around on his back a lot. He's midway through his molt, so now all his brown feathers have fallen out, and have re-grown to be perfect.
 

Ember-Tiel

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I also changed Jade’s diet. Before Jade only ate pellets with fruits and veggies, now I have included seeds as part of his diet. His food bowl now always has 75% pellets and 25% seeds. And throughout the day he eats various fruits and the occasional veggie. His new feathers thankfully don’t have any bronzing. When we first got him there wasn’t too much bronzing but it started to get worse, and when our cockatiel got sick and the vet recommended including more seeds in her diet we changed Jade’s diet as well. This helped get rid of the bronzing, even though he lies down on his back a lot.
 

taxidermynerd

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Bump! @Monica ?

I also took a look today at both of Jade's wings- it might be the lighting but it looked like the edges on most of Jade's flights are black. That's what I was seeing in the picture above. In good lighting with dry feathers, the feathers on the top of the wing look fine (no discoloration). Unfortunately I can't get a picture of her wings, as Jade doesn't tolerate wing touching for that long.
 
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Shezbug

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I do not think it is anything that you need to worry about Bee.
They just look like old feathers that have been well used and beat up with rough baby play and poor preening skills, I bet she is going to moult them out soon. Burt still gets them from time to time and they never last long before they are dropped and new ones replace them. He moulted a crappy edged one the other day- I am not sure if I threw it out or if it is in the feather drawer but I can have a look for you if you like.
 

Monica

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It seems to me that you are seeing a combination of normal feather coloration and feather bronzing. It's normal for their flight feathers as well as some feathers on the wings to have black edging. There's certainly some bronzing occurring though!


I'm with @Shezbug though, probably nothing to worry about! :)
 
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