Why are flamingoes pink?

Answer 1

Young flamingos hatch with white plumage, but the feathers of an adult range from light pink to bright red, due to carotenoids obtained from their food supply. A flamingo that is well fed and healthy is vibrantly coloured. The pinker a flamingo is, the more desirable it is as a mate. A white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or suffering from a lack of food. Notable exceptions are the flamingos in captivity, many of which turned a pale pink as they are not fed foods containing sufficient amounts of carotene. This is changing as more zoos begin to add shrimp and other supplements to the diets of their flamingos. All flamingos have 12 black flight feathers in each wing.

Answer 2

They are born grey, but turn pink as they age. It's from all the shrimp/plankton/algae they eat!
The carotinoid and other natural pigments are processed in the flamingo's body and deposited in the growing feathers.

This site has a lot of good flamingo info:
http://www.honoluluzoo.org/american_flamingo.htm

Answer 3

Flamingos have a pink feather coloring because of their food coloring. By the way not all flamingos are pink they are at first white and the food that they eat gives them their color some eat gray shrimp and become gray not pink.

Answer 4

New-born flamingos are white, but as they get older, they become pinker and bright-redder. This is because of the carotenoids (basically these are an orange photosynthetic pigment important in photosynthesis, and the reason things like carrots are orange)

The pinker the flamingo (i.e. the better fed it is), the more desirable it is as a mate.

Interesting fact: All flamingoes have twelve black feathers.

Answer 5

Flamingos are in fact pink because they eat shrimps, which contain a red pigment.

Answer 6

The bird "flamingo" eats shrimp, which have coloration within their matrix, and the coloration is passed via the digestive process within the bird. It's pink because it eats!

Answer 7

You are what you eat really comes in to play with flamingos. They eat shrimp as a main staple in their diet and the pigment in the shrimp transfers and shows on the outward appearance of the flamingos' feathers.

Answer 8

Flamingoes are pink because they metabolize carotinoids in their diet into a substance called canthaxanthin. Carotinoids include beta-carotine, the orange vitamin A producing dietary suppliment

Answer 9

The pink color comes from the food that they eat in the wild.
You will never See a flamingo in the zoo because they will turn Grey
Unless they have their own food.

Answer 10

Why are flamingos pink?

. . . it's from eating carotenoid-filled food like plankton or shrimp. Oh, and let's not forget carrots! You know, they were born white.