What do these black area means?

[SunMommy]

I've read about Stress Bars and am curious now what these are. Are the Stress Bars or are we missing something in his diet?

Malachi is now a few days from being 6 months old. We have had him home for 2 months. Seems happy. He gets his normal seed mix plus nuts, and fruits and veggies.

Just worried we are missing something. He has not had his first molt yet.

Thanks for your help!

First picture shows the black areas on his tail. None seem to be on his longest feathers. Just these shorter ones (newer ones?)

Next shows his wings

Third is just a cute picture of my boy.

[ROYJOY]

baby feathers get alot of wear and tear. after the molt, may show better feathers. they dont look like stress bars to me either. my GW is 8 months old tomorrow, and has worse feathers than that.

[Jan Pope]

The feathers look just like my Tiki,s did when I got her at 3 months. The vet said they were stress marks from being hand fed and young. She also said that they would go away with the molting process. Which she is in her first molt and is 10 months now and the new feathers do not have the black bars or marks on them. Normal process for young ones it seems.

[huntress]

Being young? LOL, Cally has them he is 40. They are old feathers getting worn out they are the ones he molts first I notice.

[Courtzrocks]

They don't look like stress bars. Matches has stress bars, I'll try get a pic of them. They are lines that go straight across the feather.

[birdsnreps]

those look just like roughed up baby feathers, nothing to worry about :)

[ndeben]

Yea I agree, I think they were just ruffed up.

[macawlover]

I agree with above comments ^^
Here's what stress bars look like (except that the line goes all the way across):

[huntress]

Macawlover, those dont even look like stress bars either. Those looks like marks commonly left from retained keratin sheths as the feathers grow out which leaves a permanent scar on the feather like that. Stress bars are more translucent stripes in more rows and wider. I cant find a good pic but I saw a pair of P'lets someone bought at the fair last weekend that were near striped like a zebra, poor babies looked awful. Ive seen them allot at bird fairs on babies and it makes me want to cry. i saw a caique baby that was striped once and if they have them, its all over the wings and tail too. ...runs to continue search for good depiction.......

here is an excerpt I have about this:
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.

[huntress]

This is a better pic of true stress bars. They were with that other pic but that other pic is just flat out incorrect. Stress bars do not scar the feather at all and are all the way across all the feathers symmetrically and on the wings too. If its ONe feather here and/or there its not stress bars but feather scars. I wish I had gotten pics of those parrotlet babies - maybe I still can......