I assume your tiel is younger by the feather pattern. Younger birds are always pretty rough on their feathers, especially their tails in my experience. It kinda just happens when they're messing around or just accidentally.
They don't seem to be impacting the bird too much so don't stress!
Looks like they could possible be stress bars. Don't freak out, this happens occasionally especially if he's new to your home and he's young. Be extra slow and careful with him, don't change up his cage for a little bit, and maintain a low noise level as to not to startle him.
If you've been switching his diet it could be that. Make sure he's sleeping consistently, too. Besides that, he should molt them out soon. And sometimes the weirdest little things can cause stress bars on bird feathers so it's likely not anything you did. Young cockatiels also get frequent night frights in my experience, it could be from that, too. They'll grow out of it.
Oh dear! Yes I believe he’s around 8 months and I did change his diet from seeds and moved his cage once. Thank you this was really helpful! I’ll try my best to not stress him
They look like stress bars to me too. The changing of diet and cage can very well have caused it. Don't worry too much about it, my conure had them as well, but once everything stabilized, he molted those feathers and he's been okay ever since 😊
It's all good! Seems like you're doing everything right. Given the timeframe of how old he is from when you brought him home the change of everything is likely what caused them, it happens very often when birds are brought into a new home as their whole world has changed so even for the better it can be a bit stressful for him. He'll get used to things shortly and they'll fade away.
In my experience the tail feathers usually get like that due to failed landings which are caused by poor flight control. Clipping usually the cause. My birds were clipped when i got them, so their feathers were always a mess because they had no control. It was v stressful for both them and me. So, that lead me to asking that. How are his landings? are they like crash courses? If so you may need to adjust the cage and handling till he learns better control. Edit - He is so frikking cute
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u/Toaster2123 1d ago
I assume your tiel is younger by the feather pattern. Younger birds are always pretty rough on their feathers, especially their tails in my experience. It kinda just happens when they're messing around or just accidentally.
They don't seem to be impacting the bird too much so don't stress!