black capped conure's strange coloring?

[WillowAndGingko]

I recently (about 4 days ago) got my new black capped conure Ginkgo who is about 5-6 months old and only after doing some more research I realized that my bird has an unusual amount of black feathers compared to every other photo of black caps I've seen on the internet. I've read that feather darkening can be due to human skin oils (my bird was hand-raised by a breeder) or poor diet (they were on an all seed diet) but I wanted to ask the opinions of other bird owners.

I included a photo I took of Ginkgo when I bought them and a comparison photo of what normal BCCs look like

*I would like to include that my bird was on an all seed diet when I purchased them and I have introduced them to pellets by mixing it in with the food the breeder gave me, they have been taking to pellets wonderfully and I plan to transition them to pellets and fresh chop in the next couple weeks. Also I plan on bringing Ginkgo to an avian vet and the earliest appointment I could get is 3 weeks out.*

 

[Laurasea]

Hello, welcome to the forum! Congratulations on your new baby!

That poop in the picture looks a little abnormal... unless he just ate a bunch of fruit or veggies? Is he fully weaned? Or was that stress poop in the car ride home?

I guess I should ask what is his diet?

Also it could be a color variation, or stress bars.. the stress bars would have been when the feathers formed , not from yiu! This could be due to nit get the right diet as a baby, being force weaned, or something else.... or it could be just his special colors I’m just not sure...

One thing yiu can do that will help the poops is to offer half a teaspoon full of fresh yogurt with no artificial sweetener in it. Yogurt is safe fir birds, and helps with probiotics fir their guts to. I learned about this on the forums and used yogurt to help my bird with a yeast infection. I gave every day fir a week then every other day fir a week then once or twice a week forever... it really helped my GCC she just lick it right from the spoon I usually get a fruit flavor or fruit mixed in fir her... even my budgie lick it up

It’s akeays a goid idea to consult an avian vet specialist if you have concerns. You should get a kitchen scale and start weighing and recording the eight of your bird in grams. Pick one day of the week and do it every week at the same time of day, I recommend morning first thing... this is a great way to catch any hidden signs of illnesses

If you go to an avian vet ask fir a gram stain and culture on the poop and a test fir psittacosis.. I would not do blood work on a young conure species ... there is a virus that conure can have or a syndrome that causes them to bleed out after a blood draw... we have had two due on the forum after blood draws , tho wether they had this syndrome we dint know...I myself won’t do routine blood work on my conure, tho if she was as sick and we had tried all other ways to determine or treat I would do blood work...

 

[Rozalka]

Darkening the most often is because of the sick liver caused by too fat food like sunflowers, nuts. You wrote the bird was on all seed diet - in many seed mixs there's too many sunflowers so this may be the reason. After introducing more healthy food black feathers schould disapeare (it takes few months)

 

[Alembic772]

We had two black caps, one who passed do to a freakish accident. Her poop was the color of what I see on the paper towel in your picture... does the poo smell? Even a little bit, then you want to get her to a vet ASAP!

Ours did not develop this type of darkness on them and we hand fed them from four weeks old. Nemo, the one who is still with us has no dark spots like this.

I agree about changing the diet off seeds or just seeds as an occasional treat. Fresh fruit and veggies too, and some sprite for lightly cook legumes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WillowAndGingko]

The poop on the paper towel in the photo was in the car and the bird had just had it's wings clipped and was being handled so I'm pretty sure it is stress poop, I attached a current photo of what their droppings look like now.

 

[WillowAndGingko]

I also wanted to show the seed mix the bird has been eating and the pellets I am introducing to them

 

[fiddlejen]

Or.... perhaps your baby is the first of a new color mutation? (Every different color variant has to Start Somewhere, right? ) Your bird certainly is beautiful!

 

[Talven]

Looking at the first picture I would say pied mutation but I have no experience with how a black capped should look.

 

[Rozalka]

If pied BCC exists, these feathers should be yellow afaik