Is he molting?

Ziggy has some new feather growth on his head and neck. Last night I found him holding one of his flight feathers just nippling on the quill end. We've never seen any evidence of plucking so I'm wondering about molting.

What determines when in Conures? Do they follow the order like with other birds, so you could check a wing to see the progression. I had thought head and neck were last but may he's starting?

All birds molt. There is no specific location that is the starting-point, however there are patterns based around keeping the parrot flighted and warm. Wing and tail feathers are feathers of priority since flight is so very important to their survival. Commonly, if a specific wing feather is molted from one wing a feather of like location if not the same from the other wing is also molted. I am not saying that this occurs the same day, but during the same period. The goal is balanced molting of priority feathers. If a priority feather is lost, accidentally, it becomes a priority for replacement.

Molting places a high demand on energy stores. Therefore a bird that is stressed due to a lack of quality food or illness will halt molting all together. With birds in the Great White North, feathers are molted only when food is abundant during Winter.

Although most books on parrots will say that they molt all of their feathers with in a year (12 months), I have never found this to be true with the Amazons who have shared our home over the years. Even the most serious stress Amazon who has come to us has taken nearer to three years to replace priority feathers. The only time I have seen a faster molting of priority feathers was with our DYH Amazon who was totally flightless when he came to us (major cut of near all primary and secondary wing feathers).

If there is a time line, I would think that a healthy parrot would present in best feather as it enters mating season.

I actually noticed that if bird molts say, #9 on the left wing, they will molt either #8 or #10 on the right wing. At least with one conure that I tracked her molting progress. It was not symmetrical, but it was near symmetrical.


I'd say they molt like other birds, but agree that there may not exactly be a specific starting point in molting.