Male green spangle I got a couple of weeks ago has a mottled rump- is this normal or just badly marked? I've been looking at it since I got him but only just realised it was different!!

I don't know...I will leave it to the experts on here. But I DO KNOW he is really handsome. A "looker"....

How old is he? It's normal for very very young budgies to have scraggly tailfeathers but he looks pretty mature. It could be any number of things. A poor diet will make for weak feathers and they get damaged easily. He could be ill as well. I would have him checked out just to be on the safe side.

Yeah he's just over 12 months old, his feathers are all in good nick, none broken or illformed, just the ones covering his rump (between the wings) are a mix of yellow and green not plain green like his chest. I've only had him a few weeks but all my birds eat better than me so time will tell hey?

Just wondering if the mix of colour was unusual

Since pieds were part of the history of initially breeding spangles, I think some of the colouring from that may be showing.

His tailfeathers look abnormally small and skimpy in the photo... could be the angle I guess?

Freckle my spangle has slight markings like that right at the base of her tail.

His tailfeathers look abnormally small and skimpy in the photo... could be the angle I guess?

 

I thought he was just missing most of the tailfeathers...It looks like he has one long one and one about halfway grown out.

 

The mottled look doesn't signify anything, I don't think, except a bleedthrough of the yellow feathers. I think it is unusual and pretty.

those tail feathers in question could be that he is molting too, Pretty gets pretty thinned out and the fact that you just got him, the cage he was in he could have been small and he was rubbing up against the sides. Plus diet since he probably only got seed store/breeders.

Cheers for answering guys- been pretty busy with work for a few days (long hours) The picture does make his tail look scraggly, he does have a feather growing though. Spose he's just another 'special' bird of mine hey.

Thinking of this topic I watched my spangles out in the avairy (and realised I have 4 of them now!) and they all have spots like this on their back, two show birds, a pet store bird and a pet from breeder. They are at different ages as well. I think as I stated before it's normal for spangles to have this pattern

Yes, Nerwen seems to be right, I searched photos of my only single factor spangle and found this:

 

 

Yours just seems to be more affected by the mottle pattern then normal.

 

Also I looked for info by an expert, and in this link (clwyd) you may find exactly that, read the part about “Anomalies” where the possible connection between pied and spangle is pointed out.

 

hope this helps!

 

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