Female Gouldian Self-Plucking

[rcharrod]

Hello All,

I trust everyone is well, it's been a long time since I've visited here - pesky life priorities getting in the way! Anyway, some of you may recall that my mom and I have a pair of BH gouldians, Jester and Blueberry, who had a 7 chick clutch back on Halloween. One chick died a while back, and the other six have been growing nicely and are currently molting into their adult feathers. Unfortunately, about two weeks ago, Jester got suddenly ill and died. We did not investigate cause of death, and the only symptoms were some breathing difficulty that appeared out of nowhere (and he died the next day).

Long intro to my question, which is regarding Blueberry. She has started to pluck out feathers on her own belly (see pictures). I first noticed this last week, when I also noticed that she was breathing heavily. I treated her with Scatt, thinking ASM, and she seems to have recovered nicely from the breathing issues. She's acting active and normal, eating fine and flying around with her six-chick brood. But the plucking has continued. Also, I'm not sure but I think she may be starting to go through her molt as well. And the chicks all appear to be fine, btw.

Could this be related to the stress of losing her mate, as well as potentially starting a molt? She gets great food, lots of greens and hard boiled egg along with her varied seed mixes. Someone at a pet store suggested to my mom that maybe she got injured, perhaps a broken bone, and is plucking the area from irritation (seems to me that she wouldn't be acting normal with a broken bone). We have not yet taken her to a vet, I'm concerned about the additional stress of doing that if not necessary.

Sorry for the long message - any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks much!

[lovezebs]

rcharrod

Sorry to hear about Jester...

The chicks btw, are looking great .

As I regards to Blueberry, I honestly don't know what's going on there. Those feathers, look odd to say the least. She looks like she's still in breeding mode, is she attempting to build a nest somewhere by any chance?

[rcharrod]

lovezebs

Thanks, Elana. Regarding breeding, she does still lay eggs periodically, even in the absence of her mate. The egg laying has been going on for a while, even before Jester died. She will lay one in a food dish, and then sit on it to incubate. There hasn't been a nest in the cage since the chicks left it.

Regarding the chicks, we were surprised to see 4 out of 6 with white breast - Jester was PB so obviously had a "split to WB" trick up his sleeve