Peacock's tail "regressing"?

[Kev]

Have anybody seen or heard of a peacock's tail 'regressing'? This male is 6 1/2 years old. I have seen him several times before(this is not my bird) and he was normal in every way(normal size tail with all normal eyes every year since 3 years old) plus his fertility was high last year. Went through a normal molt.. yet this is how he looks as of today:

If I hadn't known this bird, would had pegged him as a 2 year old based on his tail feathers. There are several complete eyes, all small and close to the fish scale on back and one or 2 of the longer feathers have partial or incomplete eyes, most don't have a trace of eye pattern at all. I'm aware of old peahens or peahens with ovarian tumors developing male coloring but can't think of any possible reason for it happening to a peacock.

 

[AndysPeafowlSanctuary]

He might need more protein and grains in his diet. Anythings a possibility tho.

 

[Kev]

Hmm, their birds are fed gamebird feed, 20% layer and cat food as treat.. They have many other birds, all are normal.. just this one bird?

 

[Kev]

pic of closed tail:

 

[6littlechickies]

hmmm, well if they have several other birds and none have this issue it's probably not diet. From the pic, doesn't look like they are free ranging either so the possibility of him ingesting something that could cause this (what I have no clue) would be minimal too. is it possible this is an anomaly of sort? similar to the peahen that will grow a train, but in reverse?

wonder if he will be fertile this year, is the owner planning on doing any mating to find out?

 

[MinxFox]

My dad and I thought at first it sounded like he wasn't getting enough nutrition, but since you said what they are feeding them I am not sure...
Just a wild guess but maybe it is a way of giving other males a chance...You know if he had a high fertility rate last year then maybe his train feathers are not so brillant for a reason and that is so other males can have a chance to mate since he will be less atractive...That is just a wild thought though.

Whatever it is it is very odd, poor thing!

 

[Kev]

Have no idea, never heard of anything about males having 'feather changes'. In peahens acquiring male plumage it's already known the cause- either the ovary has a tumor or is past menopause so it stops making estrogen. In peafowl, male feathering is almost the default because it develops in absence of estrogen, if I understood it right.. So that way it makes perfect sense why some old peahens would acquire male coloring, it's the lack of estrogen... but am struggling with a similar case for a male as they have two testes, he's not old and was fertile last year? I saw this bird on Sunday, he looked healthy and alert, like usual.

As for fertility I think the owner does plan to have peahens with this bird so we will find out if he's fertile this year.. My guess is he would be as he has colors plus still has some eyes- you can see several of them in the upper part of the second picture.

Still a big puzzle why he would grow those feathers without the eyes.. also why do a lot of them look like they are going in direction of the "Y shaped" feathers like on the longest train feathers..

 

[MinxFox]

Yeah and the feathers even have stripes on them.

 

[Kev]

Yes that's the other odd thing, he looks so much like a 2 year old boy with some color but not yet fully on their "incomplete" tails.

Perhaps he found the fountain of youth.......

 

[6littlechickies]

thanks for the specifics on the female side of that, always wondered the exact cause. interesting. I've never heard of the male side having it happen but seems quite a mystery though. Yep, i do see some eye feather, can see even better in the closed train pic so your right he prob is fertile still. wonder if he'll be as fertile, prob hard to judge that one though, unless the owner has all the records from last year, etc.