baby white faced male tiel

Question
We adopted a 8 week old hand fed white face male tiel.  We were wondering at what age does his plumage really start to turn white on his face and when his feathers will be at their best?

Thanks
Joseph

Answer
Hi, Joseph,

Your tiel will go through it's first molt at around 6 months of age and again at around 12 months of age.  You should see most of his adult plumage after his first molt with full adult plumage as a result of his second molt.  A white face tiel will have white spots on the sides of his head (over it's ears) where a normal phenotype tiel has orange spots.  The entire face/head does not turn white unless the bird is an albino (red eyes) white face or lutino white face tiel (an all white bird).  At 8 weeks of age, your tiel should be nearly fully feathered and fledging.  The white spots will continue to color in as the bird grows up.  You'll see the true adult coloration (phenotype) of your tiel after it's first 2 molts.  

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "when his feathers will be at their best."  There are many factors that play into a bird in "good feather," i.e., nutrition, bathing, exercise, preening, genetics, cage size, feather damage, etc., so all of these things need to be in place for a bird to be in peak featheration.  Good featheration is not age-related.  Also, a bird should spend much of its time preening and caring for its feathers because they are very important to a bird.  Things such as too small of a cage can damage a bird's feathers when the bird flaps its wings and the wings hit items inside its cage.  Sometimes free-flight can cause feather damage if/when the bird flies into things when its learning to fly or when its flight feathers have been clipped.  Poor diet and genetics can affect a bird's featheration.  Your tiel will need to bathe or be sprayed in order to promote preening/good featheration.  Lots of things to be considered when caring for a bird's feathers.

Tiels are very nice parrots and the white face subspecies are beautiful birds.  Congratulations on your acquisition!

Chrys Meatyard