Zebra plucking problem

[Kenzie]

Hey guys, I have an issue with one of my male zebras. He was in a cage with 3 others, slowly but surely I starting noticing bare patches on the heads of some of the other birds. They have always gotten along and there are no nest in the cage to induce territorial behavior. I separated the males from the females (2f,2m). When I got h from work one of the males was bloody, missing ALOT of feathers and in bad shape. I took him to my local Avian Vet and he doesn't have any mites or parasites of any kind. I was told there could be a number of reasons but mainly he just got pluck happy.
I was examining one of the females and it looks like this. (Picture attached) maybe it wasn't him? Is there something I can do to help with feather growth? It just looks so uncomfortable.

[Sally]

It seems that one of your birds has gotten too aggressive, and once they start plucking behavior, it is not easy to get it stopped. To help with feather regrowth, giving hard-boiled egg will provide the protein needed for feathers, but watch how much you give, or you will stimulate breeding behavior. Here is an article on reducing aggression, there may be something there that would help.

http://www.finchinfo.com/housing/reduci ... ession.php

[ac12]

I would immediately separated the plucked bird.
As Sally said feed it egg, for protein for feathers.
And if you have 'feather fast,' sprinkle a little of that on the egg, per the directions.

If the bird is badly plucked, put a heat lamp on the hospital cage and leave it on 24x7.

Sorry to say, but that is one of the reasons that I stopped breeding zebras. They can get very aggressive, and turn on their "buddy," that they have been living with for months. Also do NOT keep odd numbers of birds together in one cage. They will pair up, and the odd bird out will get picked on, sometimes so badly that it will die. I also got tired of playing musical cages, trying to find compatible pairings/groupings of zebras. I also had a couple that I had to keep in 'solitary confinement,' as they would ATTACK any bird that I put them with. IOW, I just got fed up with their aggressiveness.

Having said that, I have a friend who has had ZERO problems with her zebras. Maybe because she has them in a LARGE cage, and they have enough room to not get into each others territory.

[lnlovesorange]

So let me make sure I read your post right. The males and females are separated, you came home to find one of the males all bloody, but also in a different cage you found your female who is in the picture above? I would guess... still the plucking and the females wounds are older....? From the pic it does look like the wounds are starting to scab... But if you have 2 injured birds in separate cages you either have 2 pluckers, or (hopefully) just the one, and this wound is older, how long have you had them separate is my guess feasible? It does look like plucking... the heads you KNOW has to be another bird, cuz they can't pluck their own heads, but this spot on this bird she could have done to herself... to line a soft spot to lay eggs.... They've been known to do that but usually with zebras they'll pluck from someone else!!! Anyway, hope things work out, and just post the time line... so that we can figure out if it was the one bird that got both, or if you may possibly have 2 pluckers....