Most unusual baby lovebird

[Tinker]

They were short bright orange stripes over the backs of his wings. I don't think I saw his front as he was huddling against the back corner like all babie birds do in pet stores. He had a sort of peachlike face that he turned towards me.

[usamma]

Originally Posted by Tinker

No, I decided a while ago that I really am not going to get another bird friend for Lucki. He really does like all the attention to be put on just him. Anyway, I can't buy every bird I like, otherwise there wouldn't be any room in my house for me! lol

Yeah well that's what we said about our original two birds until we found our Lucky as a stray. Then we had to get her a friend because 3's a crowd and the two females were fighting over the one male. Then Lucky and Thistle fell in love and the rest is history. LOL! At one point we had 14 babies in the house in addition to the four adult birds.

Now we are limiting ourselves to "only" our 10 birds, unless of course another rescue comes our way.

[mayaexquisite]

I'm going to go out on a limb here 'cause there's no picture of these "stripes"... but I want to say they're stress bars due to malnutrition/poor care during hand feeding.

Did the striping look like this? If so, NOT a good sign on the breeder's behalf...



"When evaluating a baby bird, if stress bars are present on all contours, remiges, retrices and coverts at the same levels on all the feathers, this is an indication that the baby had periods of time when it was unwell, chilled or improperly fed. Sometimes, a feather sheath on a growing feather will remain on a long feather well past when it should have been preened off, and this pinching may result in one feather with a depigmented line across it that might be mistaken for a stress bar. The key to discerning which are stress bars and which are not is determined by how many feathers are affected. A single feather with a line of depigmentation is most likely not a stress bar feather. Finding a baby bird with numerous lines of stress bars present on the feathers doesn't necessarily mean that it is currently sick, but it should alert an owner and avian veterinarian that the bird has had at least one episode of problems, and this bird should receive a thorough work-up to ensure that the problems are all in the past."
- quoted from Things You Can Tell from Feathers

[Tinker]

No the stripes were nothing like that. It looked like a perfectly healthy baby lovebird and the stripes were fat and bright orange and along the wings in random places from what I can remember. I might go back next weekend and see if it's still there. I won't be buying him/her though.

[XP_2600]

Well some young birds show red marks (or orange if they are orange face) cause of plucking or just high pigment, and it back to its normal color after first molting, but let me ask something, how many mutations lost like this ?!