Chocolate silkie-odd coloring appearing

[Cierrascoop]

Hey everyone
So this is no emergency or anything, but my silkies tail feathers are changing dramatically. She was all a nice, warm chocolate color. Now she has this odd splotch of dark ...brown-ish? Coming in. Would this be considered leakage? It's so precise. Lol. I actually thought it was mud or something at first. But it isnt-and it has come in much more since I first noticed it. It's pretty neat looking. I'm just wondering if she will fully change to this dark color?? Or if it is just leakage that has randomly decided to show up? She's a little over a year.

 

[Cierrascoop]

Photo of her front side for normal color reference -since her underside is way lighter.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

How old is she? I don't think it's color leakage, not any kind that I've ever seen or heard of anyway. I have heard that chocolate plumage sun bleaches quite dramatically, however, so when they molt, their new feathers can look pretty drastically different from their old feathers. This seems extreme even for that, but maybe?

 

[Cierrascoop]

How old is she? I don't think it's color leakage, not any kind that I've ever seen or heard of anyway. I have heard that chocolate plumage sun bleaches quite dramatically, however, so when they molt, their new feathers can look pretty drastically different from their old feathers. This seems extreme even for that, but maybe?

Sorry, I just added to my first post lol. She is a little over a year. I've had her for about three months or so. So I'm not sure if her feathers were originally darker. It's just super interesting to me. That very well could be it

 

[Cierrascoop]

How old is she? I don't think it's color leakage, not any kind that I've ever seen or heard of anyway. I have heard that chocolate plumage sun bleaches quite dramatically, however, so when they molt, their new feathers can look pretty drastically different from their old feathers. This seems extreme even for that, but maybe?

She did lose quite a lot of her feathers back there around a month ago. Her huge poofy tail became much smaller and not nearly as thick. I assumed she started a molt. But she never lost any anywhere else.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It sounds like she's molting and replacing old feathers with fresh ones, then. That is quite the difference! I've had birds do their molts bit by bit before, losing a bunch of feathers and then stopping for a while. Give her time and I'm sure she'll finish the job eventually. In the mean time, you just have one interesting patchwork Silkie!

 

[Cierrascoop]

It sounds like she's molting and replacing old feathers with fresh ones, then. That is quite the difference! I've had birds do their molts bit by bit before, losing a bunch of feathers and then stopping for a while. Give her time and I'm sure she'll finish the job eventually. In the mean time, you just have one interesting patchwork Silkie!

Yeah, my olive egger, Ash is behind her in her full body photo above. She had a super long molt that was pretty patchy, too. She looked SO awful. Luckily coco is not as crazy looking color aside that is lol. I will be super interested to see the outcome of her molt once it's finished.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, my Legbar, Harriet, was much the same with her molt. She looked like she had just hopped out of a running blender for the longest time, her feathers were such a mess! She's finally looking more like an actual chicken again now, thank goodness!

Keep us updated on Coco! I'm sure she'll be stunning once she's through her molt!