- I was just told that Lisa at Kiwi's New Life Parrot Rescue
named these little guys after us.
I'll let you guess which one's Dave.
Which one's Jamie,
and I'll tell you at the end.
So don't skip to the end
cause this is gonna be a good video on feather condition.
And these are our specimens
and this is my new hair do.
(upbeat music)
(lilting music)
- Looking at the bird's feathers
can tell you a lot about the health of the bird.
If you've got a lot of black lines
or discoloration of the feathers,
that can be an indication of stress.
We call 'em stress bars, very dark or blackened
feathers can be an indication of excessive handling.
If you love to pat your bird.
Some species of birds,
their feathers go quite dull
as a result of the oil coming off on your fingers
and damaging the feathers and the feather quality.
Poor feather quality can be an indication of poor diet.
So feathers require things like Vitamin A
and other forms of vitamins and minerals
in order to grow a healthy color and healthy size
and in healthy condition.
Poor feather quality can also be an indication
of poor grooming.
So poor grooming could be a result of health conditions.
So sometimes the older birds,
especially that are arthritic
sometimes they can't reach their feathers
and groom properly.
Other conditions that could result
in poor feathering could be related to behavior.
So some birds, as a result of behavior problems
will chew their feathers
and damage their feathers.
So it's important to make sure your birds
environment is enriched.
I see a lot of birds feathers that are
I believe are very, very dull.
Not only from diet deficiencies
but also from lack of access to UV light.
UV light is underestimated in terms
of giving the bird that extra help they need.
Some people believe that the bird can get UV light
through glass by just setting
up their cage close to the windows.
However, this is not the case.
The UV that they need,
UVB is a very weak radiation from the sun
so it won't travel through glass.
(no audio)
So changes in feathers can tell us a lot
about how the bird is coping
and what might be happening in their life.
So here we see a whole lot of stress bars that are occurring
on this particular feather.
So when this feather was growing at this, at these stages
when this part of the feather was developing
the bird was undergoing some stresses
and as a result the feather hasn't developed properly.
We can also see defects like this pinching here.
Now sometimes this can be a result of disease.
It may be a result of the way the bird has been kept.
We commonly see stress bars in hand reared birds
because hand rearing is a stressful event for most birds
and some people still don't hand rear very well.
So it can be a result of poor hand rearing.
But even some good hand rearers struggle
with feather quality.
First clutches of birds,
you may also get some stress bars
cause the parents
are still learning how to parent their birds.
But you might also get stress bars
in parent reared birds as a result
of poor nutrition and poor keeping of the birds as well.
So we see lots of problems
with people who breed birds
who might have nutritional problems
such as calcium deficiencies.
Poor feather coloring is really important.
This feather's not too bad
but you can get some really dull feathering as well
which would be an indication
of stress or nutritional issues.
A lot of different changes can be seen in the feathers.
Sometimes you'll find these,
this part of the feather here is called the vein.
And this is where we see a lot of the changes occurring.
If a bird is over grooming,
you might find that the that all the little parts
of the vein are separated out.
The vein has a whole lot
of tiny little hooks that sort of link
the feathers together and as the bird grooms
he's trying to groom that vein back into place
so it's in proper condition.
It all joins up.
It's like a little zipper in between
each section of feather that just links together.
If they're doing a lot of over grooming
or how they've damaging their feathers
on the side of the cage
or there's really poor nutrition
then you'll get this separation out
and you'll get what a very tatty or ratty kind
of feather look
and the feathers like that until they malt.
So you won't get a new feather coming
until the old feather malts out.
So any damage there that's occurred will remain
until the feather's been removed.
This here is a very subtle kind of stress bar here.
So this is occurred as the feather grew.
There was some kind of stress occurring
at the stage when that part of the feather was developing.
And we can also see here how that
vein all links up together.
So there's little what we call barbules
that are linking all these barbs
which are these fine sections of the vein together.
You can see how that sort of forms that vein
it looks like it's a solid section,
but it's actually lots of tiny, tiny, tiny little sections
linked together.
And it's kind of like a zipper.
So it shouldn't look like this
And it shouldn't have all pieces taken out of it.
Usually if it's got lots of little pieces taken out of it
that's because the bird is over groomed.
Sometimes tail feathers will look very ratty and damaged
and that may be because the bird is spending a lot
of time on the ground or the husbandry is inappropriate.
So the perches are placed in an inappropriate places
maybe too close to the bars of the cage
or maybe the perches are too close together.
Or maybe there's too many toys and and cage furniture
around that the bird can't stretch out its tail
without hitting something or or damaging something.
This is a Macaw feather.
And one of the issues we have with Macaw tails
especially young birds, is when they're starting to fly
they have no idea where their tail is.
And commonly we get damaged tail feathers
from these young birds
because as they learn to fly,
they're constantly banging around their tails
and landing awkwardly.
And until they learn how to fly with long tails
we can get a lot of tail feather damage from those birds.
- [Jamie] Look at that feather difference.
That's insane.
- [Voice Off Camera] Mm hm
- [Jamie] Wow.
Drastic
Oh my gosh, they're adorable.
They're making me miss my loud, noisy, obnoxious.
(background conversation)
All right, let's see.
Those of you that guessed correctly, which one's Dave?
Which one's Jamie?
This one's Dave.
This one's Jamie.
Did you guess correctly?
Tell me in the comments.
Look who flew back to me.
It's Dave.
He likes me.
You're adorable.
Oh my earing.
Of course, the day wear earing doesn't exist.
You're so cute.
Like the real Dave.
They're just so cute.
- [Voice Off Camera] It's your pink hair
- [Jamie] No, they, so this is like Jinx's thing,
but birds love my hair.
I mean, feel it.
It's really soft.
Birds in my hair.
It's really funny.
Jinx loves it.
It's Jinx's thing.
- [Voice Off Camera] He's not scared of your nail polish.
Makes a nice change
- [Jamie] Nail Polish?
(laughing)
It is nice change.
They're so cute.
My son Kanye just tried to like preen the mascara
off my eyelashes.
I hate it.
I'm like, no !