What will this baby sun conure look like in the future?

[Steph]

I know that some sun conures are yellower and some are oranger, but do babies ever develop orange as they get older? I prefer oranger suns, but I might be getting this baby on the left:

This website shows a baby with lots of orange and a baby with lots of yellow at 9 weeks old.

Sun Conure growing up

And this is a baby sun at a Petco near me, who seems to have lots of orange.

I don't plan on breeding or anything, I just like orange sun conures. The sun conure it looks like I'm going to get doesn't seem to have much orange even in it's face. Will that change? And will he/she get more orange on his body as he ages? Can you really tell at a young age or can it go either way? I'm sure I'll end up falling in love with whatever sun I get so it won't matter in the end, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I'm just curious about it right now. Thanks everybody!

 

[Amber]

I'm not sure, but if you want an orange sun conure, maybe you should find a breeder of red factor suns?

Red factors look like this

While normal suns look like this

Of course, some suns naturally have more red/orange then others. Red factors are just selectively bred to have as much red as possible. If you are located in Australia their is a breeder in Vic who has red factors, though I've never seen their aviaries and don't know much about them or their birds.

Edit- You can colour feed birds to enhance their colours too sometimes. red factor canaries are fed foods high in carotenoids to enable them to produce more red pigment (and it really does work, when not colour fed the next hoult the feathers grow in less bright, colour feed them again for the next mould and the new feathers increase in brightness). I used to breed koi and koi would also be fed foods high in certain types of things to enhance their colours. And it does work, within limits. A bird will have a genetic limit to how much pigment it can deposit into it's feathers. For example red factor suns genes will make them deposit more carotenoids into developing feathers then more yellow suns. Some birds will be midway, some depositing more, some less. It's a combination of genes and environment.

 

[Steph]

I'm not sure, but if you want an orange sun conure, maybe you should find a breeder of red factor suns?

Red factors look like this

While normal suns look like this

Of course, some suns naturally have more red/orange then others. Red factors are just selectively bred to have as much red as possible. If you are located in Australia their is a breeder in Vic who has red factors, though I've never seen their aviaries and don't know much about them or their birds.

Edit- You can colour feed birds to enhance their colours too sometimes. red factor canaries are fed foods high in carotenoids to enable them to produce more red pigment (and it really does work, when not colour fed the next hoult the feathers grow in less bright, colour feed them again for the next mould and the new feathers increase in brightness). I used to breed koi and koi would also be fed foods high in certain types of things to enhance their colours. And it does work, within limits. A bird will have a genetic limit to how much pigment it can deposit into it's feathers. For example red factor suns genes will make them deposit more carotenoids into developing feathers then more yellow suns. Some birds will be midway, some depositing more, some less. It's a combination of genes and environment.

I thought about Red Factors but I like normal ones better because I like the color in their faces. Red Factors just have red heads, but norm subs have yellow with the orange masks almost. I'm really picky and weird about these things lol . It's not really that important though. I hooked some more pictures and the yellower ones are prettier than I remembered! They're not super orange but I think they're really pretty. Kind of like how some golden retrievers are dark and some are almost cream colored.