FINCHforum

I came home today and found feathers all over my gouldian's cage. When I caught the male to look at him, it looks like he's simply dropped the first 5-7 flight feathers off each wing! Is this...normal? He's very happy and bouncing around as usual just...can't fly so good atm.

No, I would say that is not normal to happen in just one day. Are there any other finches in the cage? I would suspect someone might be chasing him and pulling them out.

Only him and his girl, and they always get along very well -- even cuddle at night which I'm always told gouldians aren't supposed to.

It's very strange.

He's eating well hopping around and singing to her, no broken shafts, just feathers gone.

I ask because I discovered my little female star finch having lost much of her breast feathers in just a couple of days. I wonder if this is natural or if she is in bad shape. What did you discover?

Well there's no signs of a molt yet, I have been checking every few days (he doesn't *like* being caught but is pretty calm about it)... The flight feathers are growing back in nicely.

I'm wondering if he didn't have the equivalent of a "night fright" and just knock them all out .

He can almost fly correctly again now, and is singing his girl a veritable opera, which she pretends to ignore as she eats her millet.

They finally have names now, too, Vash and Milly, after some anime characters I like.

FWIW the star finches we have at work molted recently and it started that way, with most of the breast feathers. I've never seen this so I panicked and isolated them, but the feathers all grew back in nicely and no sign of a recurrence.