Peach front(ed) conures eye rings

[ZZ.Z]

After I got my peach front conure I started to do a lot of research on them. What I noticed is that peach front conures are supposed to have yellow eye rings around their eyes. I’ve read that they only have the full eye rings when they get to a certain age but I know there’s some peach fronts that got to the age of thirty nine and still only have some yellow around their eyes. I’m really curious why some have the eye ring while some don’t. I wondered if it’s because of domestication but it seems like many breeders have full eye ringed peach front too! Can anyone in this forum help me with more information? I’m really curious about peach fronts and I want to know more, thx!

[Pajarita]

Well, the Peachfronts have white eye rings (it's naked skin), not yellow but they do have yellow or orange feathers around the eye ring only sometimes it's just a couple of feathers. This colored feathers don't show up until they are 2 years old (sexual maturity).

[ZZ.Z]

Sorry by eye rings I mean feathers around the eyes. I know that peach Fronts only get the full eye rings until they are sexually mature, But there are peach fronts that never had that full yellow feathers eye rings or not at all, is that natural or is it due to domestication that’s the part that I’m really confused on. Cuz it seems like all the pictures of the wild peach fronts on google image have yellow while a lot of pet peach fronts pictures on google does not.

[Pajarita]

Well, for one thing, pet peachfronts have not been domesticated, they have just been tricked into imprinting to humans but no domestication process has take place and they are identical, genetically speaking, to the ones in the wild.

And yes, you are correct that some captive-bred peachfronts don't have the yellow/orange feathers around the eyes but I think it's not so much that they don't have them but that they only have a couple of very small ones and don't show on the pictures. The wild ones in the pictures are, most likely, mature birds of several years of age (they do seem to grow more as they get older - I had an old wild-caught male and he had a noticeable ring after a few years of good diet), they are getting the diet they evolved to eat (99.99% of pet parrots are not fed correctly) and they go through normal breeding seasons which the pet ones don't (most of them are kept hormonal all year round due to a human light schedule). The right diet and a healthy endocrine system (hormones) are pretty much everything when it comes to animals looks...

[ZZ.Z]

Ohhhh that's good to know. Thanks! One more question when they molt does the part around their eyes become grayish color first? Cuz I'm experience that with my bird right now and I'm kind of worried if that's only molting or something else.

[ZZ.Z]

And also what do you mean by "healthy endocrine system"? Should I get him a partner? sorry for the dumb question :p

[Pajarita]

There are NO dumb questions... but there can be dumb answers

When you say the 'part around the eyes' are you referring to the orbital ring (the naked skin ring around the eyes) or the colored feathers ring around the orbital ring? In any case, the orbital ring does not change color because it's skin (unless we are talking a bruise or something like that). The colored feathers ring should not change color either. It might look a bit like a 'broken line' (meaning, empty spaces between colored feathers) when the bird is molting but these feathers are so small, I doubt the 'hole' made by the old feather falling off is noticeable. Now, usually, when you see grey on a bird that does not have a grey plumage, what you are seeing is the down feathers. Down are the small, very fluffy feathers that are under the contour feathers (the roundish ones that cover the bird's body) and which provide insulation.

A healthy endocrine system means one that is working as nature meant for it to work. The endocrine system is the one that governs glands and their production of hormones and, in birds, it's regulated by the length of daylight. The days are not always of the same length during the year, we have long days in the summer and short days in the winter and the difference in the number of hours that there is light is what tells the bird's glands when to start producing hormones and when to stop. And the quality of light is what makes it produce other hormones (like the ones that are called "reward hormone' or 'happiness hormone'). Birds are the most depedent species of all the vertebrates to quality and duration of light - to them, light is almost a nutrient. Now, although we, birdkeepers, usually refer to the endocrine system to explain sexual hormone production, in reality, it is much more complex than that because it regulates sleep, appetite, mood, cell regeneration, etc. - even the immune system! And that's why it's imperative that their endocrine system is healthy and in good working order. How do we keep it that way? By keeping the bird at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk. Why do we need to do this? Because their 'internal clock' (the one that tells the bird's body when it's time to eat, to sleep, to molt, to breed, etc) is turn on by the light of dawn and off with the light of dusk. Nature never meant for birds to live indoors, she made them to live outdoors and exposed to the sun light and the different seasons.

[ZZ.Z]

Go it, thank you! I know I can’t give him what he is supposed to have but I’ll do my best!

And thank you again! I was talking about the feathers and I feel like the “grey” is the greyish green color of the bottom half of his green feather. And the color shows is because the smaller dark green feathers around the eyes are falling off due to molting.

[Pajarita]

There you go! Mystery solved