FINCHforum

I have owned a pair of star finches for about 2 months. They have been
doing well, except that I have just noticed the hen seems to be
missing most of the feathers just under her wings and towards her
tail. This area is usually covered by her wings. Does this breed moult
heavily like some other breeds? She seems fine otherwise, eating &
drinking. I have not noticed excessive grooming, picking or getting
picked on by her mate, although he has tried to mate with her more
than a few times. I have also not observed massive amounts of feathers
in the cage. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you,
Heather

Glad to be able to pass on what I learned (which you can recap from message thread entitled "severe feather loss". I note that I'm a novice, but am happy to pass on what I've learned.

I have a star finch hen who, after having her and a mate for 3 months, lost much of her feathers on her chest and back (it was essentially the white/yellow feathers, not the green feathers). This happened in about a 36 hour period, and I was startled and convinced she would not make it. Despite the fact that she was chipper, active, and eating, I isolated her and gave her antibiotics and added heat because she looked terrible. I was really surprised by how sore and almost raw her skin looked.

Folks on this site told me that the feather loss sounded like a natural (albeit dramatic) moult. After about 10 days she started to have new feathers coming in and after several weeks, as predicted by folks here, she has recovered much of her feathers (although her back is the last to recover). I give her Feather Fast as a diet supplement to help her as she grows feathers back. Also, the heat was a good idea because she was essentially naked over much of her body.

I note that she and her mate were beginning to nest when this happened. Following advice from this site, I pulled the nest because breeding and growing feathers was going to be too tough on her body. (And, I have since decided not to encourage any breeding.)

I hadn't thought that her feather loss was due to plucking, because there were no feathers in the nest. However, weeks after the incident and during her recovery I recently noticed plucking from the male (so I separated them again until she's 100 %).

Hope my experience helps give you some peace of mind.

ok, thanks for your reply. I was waiting to start them breeding for about another month or 2, but they seem anxious and have been trying to get together for a while now.
I pulled her out and had a closer look. She has a few new feathers coming in at the base of the tail so that's a good sign. The room is heated higher than usual right now as my Goulds have just hatched some chicks. I'll just keep an eye out for her and check her again to see if there are any more new feathers. I'm not familiar with "Feather Fast". I have "Feather Up". It's for moulting. I'll give her some of that too.
Thanks again,
Heather

Feather Fast is the Morning Bird line supplement for molting. She could be molting, or the male could be plucking her, especially if they have been acting like they want to breed, they will use anything they can for nesting material. My extra Star hens have been shredding the newspaper in the bottom of their cage for quite a while now, and the 3 pairs are in breeding cages.