Wing feathers?

[friskytiger]

I'm sorry if I'm out of line posting new thread, I'm new to this and couldn't find where to ask for sure.
Conner is now supposedly aprox. 6months old, he has had us going on 3 of those months. His front lower folded wing tips are greyish downy soft and always have been. Hopefully photo shows what I'm asking about, is this a normal thing? Conner is the 1st and only Mitred, not to mention 1st Conure I've ever seen & have.

 

[MrsKay]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you are asking? Hopefully someone will see this and chime in
He looks OK to me, but I'm not experienced enough to know for sure.
Keep him on a good variable diet for sure.

 

[samhatch]

I agree with MrsKay... she seems to look healthy and the wings look normal but a photo can be hard to tell.

 

[Dinosrawr]

I think the only way we could fully understand what you're asking about is to see his wing fully extended. Other wise the feathers look quite healthy and lovely to me! Sometimes when birds open and flap their wings around feathers can become displaced, but the bird will generally correct it with some relaxing preening sessions

As a side note, nearly birds have down throughout their entire body - with the exception of certain birds with bald heads . It helps with insulation to keep them warm, or to help keep them cool.

Conner is quite the beautiful conure! I love the colours of mitred conures. Congratulations on becoming a part of conure parronthood!

 

[weco]

I'm pretty sure what's missing is part of Connor's alula 2-3 small feathers that assist a bird in tight take offs & landings.....on an aircraft, think forward leading edges of a wing that allows a plane approaching an airfield from other than straight on, by dropping one & lifting the other of these movable sections, the plane is able to bank (turn), relatively sharply, into a landing approach.....

If Connor has not gone through his first molt, the missing feather(s) will probably grow in then.....if not, you might have to get him a prescription for Rogaine.....

In the event the feather(s) never grows in/back, he should have no problem flying as I doubt he would ever need to do any acrobatic take off or landing maneuvers ! ! !

 

[friskytiger]

Tyvm Weco, I'm fairly certain you are spot on. The lady that my uncle got Conner from said he will not be able to fly for a year because his wings are clipped , in fact his wings are perfectly full and very nice except for those elbows which is probably where they cut. btw Conner can fly well from what I've seen. I'm very much on the fence about clipping, at the moment I'm thinking not to clip. I might try to get a wing spread picture, yes his feathers are nice. He's still not liking the idea of being touched on wings, back, chest or legs.

 

[weco]

Wing clipping, if you do decide to, is relatively easy to do.....clipping is a testy subject in many bird circles, but it doesn't hurt a bird & helps provide a quick/temporary control factor of a headstrong bird, giving you about a six month window to use other, less controversial training methods.

I don't know where some people get their information, but there's a lot of misinformation, that goes around, relevant to our feathered friends, even around here sometimes.....

Anyway, those few missing feathers are, as you already know, not prevent him from flying or even slow him down & if their absence affects his takeoffs or landings, he will learn to compensate.....

To clip a bird, one needs to remove about a third to almost half of the first 5-6 flight feathers, though to really ground a bird, it might be necessary to trim up to 10 of the flight feathers on each wing.....there are several good static images around the net or you can find a couple of decent how-to videos on youtube.....