# Tail Feathers Yellow/White Barring



## Eileen (Mar 11, 2011)

Ok perhaps this is a stupid question ,but what is causing the tail feathers of my grey baby to have two yellow tail feathers. I would expect them to all look the same.


----------



## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

no your babe is not pied. does s/he have yellow or white tick mark on the back of its head behind crest, below is a picture of my newest pied baby he's 5 weeks old and the other is nala my 5 year old grey split to pied hen. note the clear flights on his wings, to be considered pied they have to have one clear wing flight or tail feather, barring is not clear. this particular babe has 9 primary clear per wing then grey primary then a clear secondary, as well as clear tail feathers, nala has the same tail as your babe however this does not mean split to pied as i have pure grey that have that tail feathering, only the hens keep it, the males go pure grey, just like pearl males. Nala has one unique characteristic that shocked even srtiels, she still has all wing spots from tip to body.


----------



## nwoodrow (Feb 13, 2011)

the picture below is piccolo at 8 weeks old he is a grey split to pied, sorry i dont have an under veiw but its the same as nala's and i know all juvenal babes look like adult hens.


----------



## Eileen (Mar 11, 2011)

Ok, thank you! My baby's mom has some white ticking on her neck. I think she is split pied. I havn't noticed anything on him though. I just thought it was strange that two feathers were yellow and the rest were not.


----------



## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

From youe pix's that is the normal layout for the tailfeathers of a normal grey. If a female after the bird has it's first major molt it will always retain these 2 yellow barred feathers, and if a male it all the tailfeathers will molt out to become solid dark grey feathers with no barring or speckling.

The other bird shows the tail of a pearl. if female the tail will always be marked the same,, and if a male all the feathers will eventually be a solid dark color.

Neither of the tails shown is an indication of pied.


----------

