Why do fledgling peeps have those lil white stringy feathers? When do they lose them?
That’s how all feathers grown in.
Elvis will be our illustration of feather development.
Peeps hatch covered in chick down, which is actually going to end up being the tip of each of their juvenile feathers.
You see the first hints of feathers at coming in at 6 days. Look really closely at his nubby little wing tips.
Pins are highly vascularized tissue wrapped in a protein sheath.
Here he is at day later at 1 week old, and you can more clearly see the yellow down tipping each shaft.
At 10 days, the barbs at the tips of the feather have formed fully. The blood vessels shrink away, and the sheath at the tip of the shaft starts to dry up in preparation to flake off.
One day later (11 days), you can already see the tips of the feathers revealed as the dead portion of the protein sheath dries up and flakes off.
A day later (12 days), you can see more feather, but the shaft is not fully frown in yet, by any means.
13 days, and the shafts are still growing in, with more of the sheath drying up to be preened off.
Here he is at 3 weeks and those same feathers still aren’t all the way in yet, but you can still see some of the down on his wing shield.
It starts getting brittle about now, and in the act of preening off the sheath, the down gets sheared off of the tips of the feathers.
Feathers are almost fully grown in at 4 weeks, and you can see he’s preened off most of the down.
There is not much difference in length between 4 and 5 week old feathers, but the down is fully preened off by now.
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