Stress Lines

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject: Stress Lines & taimongs

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Below is a photograph of Charcoal's father, Legend.


Look at the slightly shorter tail and you will see that about 1/3 from the end, it looks as though a pair of scissors had been used to snip off a bit of the tail. This is what can happen when a stress line happens. A stress line is a line that runs horizontally across the tails and it occurs when the bird does not get enough nutrition during the molt. The tails continue growing and this results in a slight "gap" in the tails. It is a weak spot and the tails often break off eventually at this spot.

In Legend's case, what happened was that his aviary was exposed to rain during the molt and the food got wet and he did not eat probably for most of the day. Then how come, you ask, is the stress line on only one of the tails? Well, what happened in Legend's case was that one tail had grown to its full length before the stress occurred to the 2nd tail which only began growing when the other tail had reached about 2/3rds its length. Hence, the stress line was only on the growing tail.