FINCHforum

I have a pair of Orange Cheeks, when we purchased them the hen had some feathers missing on her cheeks, Its almost like its balding. They are about the same age and the hen is also a lot thinner then the male. She seems sickly - do most vets know about finches if I take her in? Or is this something most orange cheek hens do? Anything I should watch out for?

I tried the eggs, but she won't touch them. Looked for mites and didn't see any - perhaps they are just too small for me to see though.

Did you manage to find a vet to take your finch to?

What you described was not a normal healthy bird, but too vague to diagnose over the internet. Hopefully your vet could help your bird out.

If you post a pic, it helps us have an idea what may be going on with the hen.

The average vet knows nothing about finches, and even when going to an avian vet, you need to find out if they are familiar with finches. Many avian vets mostly treat hookbills and rarely see a finch. Part of that is the cost--my vet charges $45 just to walk in the door, and then the treatment is added to that. It is easy to quickly run up a large bill on a very inexpensive bird. The only birds of mine that would go to a vet are the Strawberries and Purple Grenadiers, more because of their scarcity than their dollar value.

If you could post your location and some photos, it might help.

I'll post some photos soon. After talking with somebody from craigslist who has a lot of finches locally I opted to cancel the vet appointment, sounded like it was cost a bunch for them to possibly find nothing.

A few nights ago I sprayed my 2 orange cheeks with some bird bath spray. The next day I returned home from work and all the birds were zinging back and forth in the cage as happy as could be. I've noticed that after my zebras learned they could bathe in drinking cups all the others have followed and done the same thing. I put a bathing thing in the cages (the zebras use that), but the orange cheeks almost prefer to do it in the drinking water.

Feathers are still missing but the bird seems to now be in good health and happy as can be. I'll give it some time I think to see if she regrows it.