Molting as Growing Up

[centrarchid]

I hope you post your results!

This will take better part of 8 months.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

This will take better part of 8 months.

No worries, I'm in no hurry. If I don't die between now and then, I'll be interested to read it. I expect I will learn someting.

 

[centrarchid]

Feather set 2 coming in with first obvious representative a secondary. Barring lost. Note pointy rather than rounded tip. I am not confident what position the feather represents.

 

[centrarchid]

 

[Folly's place]

Love it!
Mary

 

[centrarchid]

These are chickens a full month older than what I am following at home. Still in first feather set. Breed or environment making so not all chickens equal.

 

[centrarchid]

The pointy tail feathers on both birds are the later feathers of feather set 1 to come in. They appear intermediate in size and color between feather sets 1 and 2. Primary feathers of feather set 2 are proximally coming in first. Two most distal primaries are coming in late without predecessors so I do not know if they should be classified as set 1 or 2. Secondary feathers of feather set 2 are coming in distally first.

 

[aart]

Hope those colors hold up.

 

[centrarchid]

They are easy to see in full sun. Only crude pictures being posted. I also handle the chicks in good light to see and record marks. Replacement pattern of particular interest and all appears good on that front.

I am still trying to digest how the natural banding pattern on the feathers disappears as the feathers enlarge and age.

 

[centrarchid]

I bit off more than I can chew on this. Two feather replacement patterns in this American Gamefowl brood. Neither pattern followed in Speckled Sussex nor an American Gamefowl strain with heavy Oriental Gamefowl influence.


The cockerel.

Pullet with rapid transition from set 1 to 2 on tail. Full sibling and broodmate to cockerel and pullet featured through this thread

Butterscotch with tail still in feather set 1. She has a sister with similar pattern while fourth sister like pullet above.

I am trying to figure out how to make drawings of feather replacement pattern that is a lot more complex than I originally thought.