Aussie Finch Forum

Don't know as I have never seen one that looked like that to my recolection. Wait patiently for it to finish colouring up and let us know. Good luck.
LML

Hi Finchy
don't want to break your dreams, but are you sure those black spots in the cheeks are really black feathers? They look like the ears holes to me. Young blackcheeks show full black cheek patch already in the nest plumage.





ciao
Dimar

Now they are nice looking Zebs.
Jack

Handsome wee bubs

Dimar wrote:Hi Finchy
...are you sure those black spots in the cheeks are really black feathers? They look like the ears holes to me. Young blackcheeks show full black cheek patch already in the nest plumage.
Dimar

No, I'm not. It's just that I've raised uncountable numbers of baby Zebras and never seen one looking like this. He's fully feathered so I don't think he has an unnatural exposure of ear holes. We wait...

Very Nice Zebs

Those are adorable! (Jealous!)

UPDATE on my little guy: There's no sign of the blackness in the cheeks developing, but something strange is going on - he's moulting heavily, suddenly, like a Gouldian. He has scruffy patches of pin feathers all over the place, that are actually obscuring his colouring at the moment. I have never seen a Zebra do this! For me they have always moulted gradually, imperceptably, into their adult colours, and usually when a fair bit older than 2-3 weeks out of the nest. None of his siblings (he has 6!) are doing this. The plot thickens...

I suspect , based on the original footage, that this little guy has had some feather abnormality from the beginning. To me the black cheeks looked like dystrophic feathers overlying the ear which gave it a translucent blackish appearance. What you are describing now is the feathers starting to be replaced as the chick matures but they may moult at different rates depending on how cleanly the damaged feathers are shed in comparison to non dystrophic feathers.

This is a young one I had come out three years ago, had the hopes up, but by the first moult the black in the cheeks had turned back to reveal a nornal grey cock bird, there is a strain of birds that the hens retain the black in the cheeks but I don't know if any cock birds have been produced.

How interesting! Thanks for posting. Mine looks quite similar.

They have been sent to torment us!