One of the pressing issues for owners and future buyers of parrots is the age of the bird. Many do not even know how to correctly determine the age of parrots. It is believed that when buying a bird in a store it is almost impossible to find out its age, because in appearance many individuals have practically no differences, especially budgies. In addition, not all sellers say true age. In this article, we learn some nuances that can be useful in determining the age of the parrot.
Why is it important?
Many bird shoppers do not at all wonder why you need to know the age of the parrot. This is due to the fact that birds that have been in the store for a long time, usually kept on poor food without vitamins, are adjacent to other, possibly unhealthy birds, and the rooms themselves are practically not aired. As a result, the birds get sick, sometimes hidden. Therefore, acquiring the “old” parrot, you can simply purchase an unhealthy bird, which you can attach to very quickly, but it will die, or it will be disturbed by very serious health problems.
The main thing is attention
In order not to miscalculate the birds with age, let us consider what external signs it can be defined as a layman.
- Professional ornithologists recommend paying attention when choosing a parrot on his head. In budgies, contrasting "wales" should be clearly visible on it. In young females and males, these stripes are visible from the beak itself to the bright head. The only exceptions are albinos that do not have such bands.
- And also very carefully you should consider the eyes of the bird you like. They should be bright black with iris. Usually such eyes indicate that the parrot is no more than six months old.In some individuals, the eyes may become lighter by about 10 months. But the bright and wide rim around the pupil of the bird is one hundred percent confidence that you have an individual that is clearly more than 1 year old. Of course, there are exceptions related to mutations, for example, red eyes in albinos. But such individuals are extremely rare.
- The age of the bird can also be determined by paying attention to the part of the head above the beak. Where the nostrils are. This place is called a wax. So, in young budgerigars, it should have a pale pink shade, cream, and sometimes bluish. It becomes darker at the moment when parrots begin puberty, usually this should take an average of six months. Here, one should also take into account the point that such shade changes are mainly characteristic of females, in boys the pink-blue shade of the waxwort is preserved for a longer period. This is due to the anatomical features.
- And also special attention should be paid to the spots on the throat of a bird. The younger it is, the brighter and richer they are, and the older it is, the more their contour is more smooth and even.
- In parrots, which are only a few months old, the scales on the legs are quite dense. Therefore, they are also worth paying attention to. With age, these very scales become very noticeable and loose.
- And perhaps, to the very last criterion by which you can determine the age of the parrot can be attributed to its tail. The tails of young females and males are rather short. But one should not exclude the possibility that a bird can be an adult, it could simply lose long feathers from its tail for other reasons.
Paying attention to all of the above criteria and signs, it is very likely to find out how young the seller offers. It is actually not so difficult to distinguish a young parrot from an old one.
But it should also be noted that the life expectancy of a domestic parrot is usually 10 years, in rare cases 15. If you compare the age of a parrot by human standards, you should know that a year and a half parrot corresponds to the age of a 10-year-old child. To translate age, you can pay attention to special tables.
To determine the age of the cockatiel parrot, you should also pay attention to the paws, pale pink scales should be located on them.
And also usually young Corell chicks move and jump quite awkwardly, which in many ways suggests that they have not yet fully adapted. The plumage of young birds is bright, but not yet plentiful. Babies have black feathers on their heads, which most often brighten only by 10 months. A completely gray color in this type of parrot appears only after the first molt, that is, after six months.
The age of lovebird parrots can also be determined by the waxen, which in young birds should be darker. After 3 months, she is already bright.
The birds acquire bright green plumage after about six months, before that they have a grayish-green uneven color.
To summarize, it should be said that you should not recognize the age of the bird by only one sign, for example, specks on the head or the shade of wax. In order to guess age as close as possible, you should consider all of the above signs in an integrated manner. In addition, it is worthwhile to understand that not everyone can find out the age of a parrot by external signs, and therefore you should buy birds only in well-recommended places where potential customers are not deceived.
On how to determine the age of the budgerigar, see the next video.
