Preening

[Roonil Wazlib]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RbLNJBbFHo

is this normal preening behavior? It looks like he might have mites... I hadn't seen him preen properly until just now, and he seems to be doing fine at the moment. No jerky movements like in the video

[Wolf]

I do not see anything unusual about this, it looks perfectly normal to me.

[Pajarita]

The preening is normal but what is not normal is his plumage... it's in real bad shape for such a young bird (edges stand out and look tattered while an ekkie with a good plumage almost looks as if it had hair instead of feathers) and I've never seen one with sides that are so yellow, they are usually red.

[Roonil Wazlib]

Feathers

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Under wing

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Im worried about the dark lines across his feathers - should I be? Also, he doesnt have any feathers under his beak, I have no idea if this is normal or not, or if hes still too younge to have them

he has quite a thick under coat. I can see the soft grey feathers 90% the time. Im not sure what his diet was like before, but hes on 80% freash fruit and vegies now, and over the last month been working up to showering, which hasnt been happening in his pervious home (which u know), and I dont think he preens as often is he should. Hopefully theyll come better next growth. Is there anything else I can do to help his plumage?

[Wolf]

The dark lines running across his feathers are called stress bars because they are caused by stress. So, yes, you should be concerned about them. Also due to the ragged nature of the ends of his feathers, I would think that he may be over preening them. I have never seen this species of parrot other than in pictures which don't show the level of detail as your pictures so I am not as familiar with what their feathers normally look like as I would like to be. Pajarita is much more experienced than I am and with a wider range of parrot species.

[Roonil Wazlib]

gee, I hadn't herd about stress bars before.
Pajarita, do you know how often electus parrots molt? I'm so dearly hoping that his next molt his feathers will be without stress bars. I'll feel like a terrible mum if they continue to be there

His under wings are defiantly not red, but a mixture of light orange/yellow and a brighter orange. Could this be a sign of him still being a juvenile? or bad diet? I've done some research, and it may be because hes a subspecies, and some have subspecies have a darker colouring of green - which is might be as well.

I noticed just then on his tale feathers - they seem to have tiny holes in them, when he stretches out i can clearly see right through them and those feathers also look pretty darn tattered now that i have a closer look.

His beak is pealing, but that's normal, right? especially it seems just to be peeling around those black bits at the top of his beak.

After his shower yesterday his plumage looks better! So at least that's a positive.

I noticed his photo before i met him looked quite bad, and i knew he would need a fair bit of help to get smexy, so i'm so very glad i adopted the little fella. I didn't realize how bad his plumage was though. I hope i'm not doing anything to cause more stress.

I often see him standing on just one foot, especially near me, and there is lot of chirrting coming from him just before sleep, so i think he has settled in fine and is quite happy and comfortable with his new family.

He usually gets between 10 - 13 hours sleep each night, his bed time is between 7:30 and 8:30 most nights, so that's pretty regular and consistent. Although - he does seem to yawn a bit during the day...

Do you think he may be over preening because he is board? I'm doing the best I can in the way of toys for him as he didn't come with as many as i was hoping. I still need to pay back my parents for the money i borrowed to get him, but i have gotten him three new toys - a foraging/shredding toy is by far my fave and his too! He's still grasping the concept of foraging, and takes a week to get to a nut wrapped inside a newspaper (but he doesn't play with it that often, as hes not quite sure what to do) but we are working on it. Hes also not a big chewer, at all. I must be one of the few pet humans trying to encourage that behavior!

He hasn't had exposure to any sunlight while hes been settling in as we just don't get that much sun in the house - but yesterday i took him out in his carry cage a we sat for about 15 20 minuets. Going to do that again today and make it a regular thing until we can get an outdoor Avery set up and or hes ok with his harness.

Like i said hes on a mostly fruit and veg diet with nuts and sunflower seeds as treats. He is flighted, and seems to enjoy flying, but I've noticed that after only five meter flight when he lands on my shoulder, he pants a bit - not for long, but it makes me think as soon as i get my training perches we will be getting stuck into flight training so he can be more fit.

Going to be making an appointment for hopefully the weekend with an avian vet, depending on the cost - if its too expensive, we might have to wait another week or two - but it is on the list of things to be done as soon as we can!

Perhaps we should move this topic "health, nutrition and diet" as it seems we have gone a bit off topic

anyway, sorry for the long story, thank you so much guys for you help, I want to hug you right now

[Roonil Wazlib]

Peeling beak

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Feather tail close up

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Tail feathers

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Under beak

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[Pajarita]

Without any real information to go by except what I see on the pictures and his very young age, I would say that the bad plumage is due to his parents not been properly condition prior breeding and been fed incorrectly when they were raising him. I don't think that the diet he got in his previous home had a whole lot of effect on what we see because most of the 'bad' feathers and the beak would have been formed when he was in the egg and as a baby as he could have only gone through the juvenile molt, which is always a partial one -he hasn't had time to do a full one.

I have been taking care of a pair of canaries I gave away to friends about 1.5 years ago and their two babies and you have no idea the difference in plumage with mine! (Needless to say, I am FURIOUS!) I kept a clutch brother (Brule) of the male I gave away and his plumage is perfect, but the one I gave away has broken flight primaries and tattered tail feathers, and the babies are a disaster, they practically have no primaries in the wings! People don't realize that you need to start conditioning the birds you are going to breed months prior the actual pairing because feeding them well when it's already breeding season is not going to give the mother enough reserves to pass on generously to the egg. And, if, on top of this, you don't give the parents super excellent nutrition when they are feeding the babies, you end up with a baby bird that is not as strong or as healthy as it could be and I think that's what happened to your poor ekkie. But the good news is that a good diet, a solar schedule, direct sunshine and some supplements should do the trick so just keep on doing what you are doing and he will be fine. The only thing I would do is to add quinoa, hemp, flax and sesame seed to his diet but be careful you don't elevate the total protein content too much. Quinoa and hemp sprouts would help, too. The idea is to provide it with the most completely and best quality protein while keeping it at a good level.

[Roonil Wazlib]

Hi, so i was able to scrounge up the money for his vet visit. We are going on Monday for a check up. In a month or two we will be going back for microchipping, as he doesn't have a band or anything.

Breeders who have no idea what they are doing is such a sad thing, and when they don't take the care to even band the animal - i''m kind of afraid that he's come from a 'backyard' breeding of sorts. I don't even know if you need a license to be breeding these animals in aus. Something I'll be asking my vet about, but its clearly not good breeding conditions, so they need to be stopped.

That's so sad, I'm sure they'll be looking good again in no time in your care. I guess no more giving your birds to those friends again.

The other 20% of his diet at the moment is the budgie mix, which i think it was you that suggested it. I have looked around for the red and black 'rice' to make him gloop, but i havn't been able to find any, another question for my vet, she will be bombarded!

Give your canaries my love and affection <3

[Pajarita]

Brown rice is fine (only do a search and see which brand has less arsenic in Australia -we have a problem with that here in the States), I used it for years but we have been getting more and more 'exotic' grains lately and I like to experiment with them.

These are the ones I get (in case you can find them online)

red rice:

either this one: http://www.amazon.com/Himalayan-Red-Ric ... s=red+rice

or this one: http://www.plummarket.com/home/lundberg ... ared+beans

Black rice:

either this one: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/lundberg ... &utm_term={keyword}&utm_content=415-01+All+Products&utm_campaign=415-01+Product+Ads&CA_6C15C=530002460000042902

or this one:http://www.lotusfoods.com/index.php/products/whole-grain-products/forbidden-rice/