New flock of bald Zebs, missing toes, over grown beaks

[skythrutrees]

Update on the finches!

Okay, first of all a correction. Only one bird has missing toes. The vet talked about toes, showed me the one, and for some reason I heard that that they were all missing toes, and didn't bother to really look at them. I think I was so caught up in the situation I wasn't really listening and jumping to conclusions. So sorry..only one with two missing toes. That's good news though!

It's been a month, and two are growing back feathers very well. Some of them only had maybe 10 percent feather loss, so they are looking more like real birds now, with very few feathers missing.

The other 4 still have a lot of feathers missing. Attached you will find a pictures of Pinocchio and Scooby, who is the worst. Even after a month, it doesn't look like he's gained any feathers back.

I took Scooby and Pinocchio back to the vet today to get Pinocchio's beak trimmed, and talked to her about Scooby. She suggested I separate them, but there could be follicle damage (I think that's what she said) so even separating them may not help.

Scooby and Pinocchio are now in a cage by themselves. This will make it easier to watch them and give special treatment to the two who seem to need it most.

I have been feeding them egg every day, and have ordered Feather Fast. I'm hoping this will help, because I'm very frustrated to see Scooby still as naked as he is.

I have only given bath water once. They were unsure what to do with it. Scooby went in right away but sat in the water, confused. I felt unsure letting him sit in the water when he's so exposed. Now that they are separated, I'm going to see if I can get the others to take a bath.










This is Pinocchio...just before going to the vet for another beak trim.



And the new set up. Scooby and Pinocchio are on the top, the other 4 in the big bottom cage. I don't have heater or anything set up just yet.

[DanteD716]

hopefully those feathers grow in, and Pinnochio is a handful! you are doing great

[ac12]

For the bath, you could zap the bath water in the microwave.
When it is cold I zap 32oz of water for 35 seconds (1sec/oz of water), just to take the chill out of the water. But you could do longer to actually warm up the water. That would make it better for them, since they don't have feathers. I have a couple birds that go into cold water shock, so I have to make their bath WARM.

If they were repeatedly/constantly plucked, which it looks like they were, the feather folicle could have been damaged. When that happens, no feather will grow from the folicle. The only way to see if the feathers will grow back is to feed them egg, feather fast and a good diet, and wait and watch.

Put the heat lamp on their cage. Very important for them w/o feathers.

Also put a wind block on 3 sides of the cage to prevent drafts from making them cold.