Babe's faithful slave Jennifer Moore says, "I don't really know why Babe's first feathers were so oddly colored. All the vos females from this particular breeder have been turning out this way. The males are normal coloring. The breeder's SI babies are drop-dead gorgeous! The parrot store where I got Babe swears up and down that Babe didn't receive any medications while she was in their care. There is no follicle damage. Babe was perfectly healthy in every way at six months when I bought her. I took her to two avian vets, and they were quite impressed with her health and temperament. They both said her feathers were not damaged in any way. The odd orange and yellow would have resulted from meds given to her at the time the red feathers were forming, thus interfering with the coloring. Red food coloring can do the same. The green scallops on the edge of her purple feathers were a juvenile coloration that would go away with the first molt. Strees and trauma to the pin feather can alter feather color, but there was no indication of that. A third vet thought the odd coloring might be a result of inbreeding. I don't know what health problems could result from inbreeding, but thus far, there have been no health problems whatsoever. The bottom line is that the origin of Babe's unique baby feather color is a mystery. The feathers molted out and now she has all normal looking plumage. Her coloring becomes more intense as time goes on. She looks superb in the sunlight after she has dried out form a soaking shower. She's so beautiful that sometimes I can't believe she's real!"
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