Buttfeathers missing and now i know why...

[rowaradragon]

What can i do about my female pulling out the male's buttfeathers? I have separated them but is that the best thing to do till they grow back? If they grow back...

[tammieb]

Yep, separation to allow the feathers to regrow. Which they will do if the feather shaft wasn't badly damaged. Not much else you can do, once they get in the habit of plucking it's difficult to break them of it. Hopefully you caught it earlier enough.

[rowaradragon]

Probably not. He's been missing feathers for a long time, almost since I got him.

[Hoji]

Hi,
I was checking out the societies at PetSmart on friday and saw that most of them had short (or many almost no) tail feathers. I was wondering if they were being plucked out by others or if these could be babies? One seemed to be very interested in the other one's butts.

[rowaradragon]

buttfeathers, not tailfeathers... by the way.

[tammieb]

I've noticed that Societies in general have shorter tail feathers than most other species. Unless they are actually missing feathers, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Hoji]

Is there a difference? By butt feathers - do you mean the short feathers around the vent instead of the long feathers I would call tail feathers? I may have my terminology all screwed-up.

[tammieb]

Sorry, guess I was replying more to Hoji's post about tail feathers.

If your bird is missing feathers around the vent area then I would be concerned. It's been my experience that birds don't normally pluck each other around the vent, so I'd suspect the bird was plucking itself.

[rowaradragon]

Buttfeathers is not some new terminology. i made it up. But yes, near the vent and I WATCHED the female puck the male's feathers out. So i know he didn't do it himself.