FINCHforum

So, something really odd happened, I have two zebra finches, they live in the room where I work on my computer, and out of the blue, the white one lost feathers in two places. On the back of her neck and hor side-front.

The two patches appeared in a short 2 day period.
The other finch is fine. Neither of them look sick, nor I see the other picking on her. Both of them are female.

On her side, the feather grew back in a few days, it's barely visible now.
On her neck on the other hand is nothing. a clear patch.

It's really visible when she's sleeping with her head tucked under her wing.

anma

Are you sure the normal female isn't plucking the white one? That spot on the back of her neck could very well have been from her cagemate. I don't know why aggression would have started now of all times, but I hear zebras can be a bit weird like that. What are they eating? A diet deficient in fat, protein, vitamins (E and A especially), or minerals could contribute to plucking, although perhaps not aggression. Blue light can also contribute to stress and feather-plucking.

I haven't seen them plucking, they are calm, sleeping together. So odd. And I don't put them in cages anymore. One patch had all the feathers growing back, but the neck area is completely bald. So odd.

I feed them a finch seed mix,a hard boiled egg every week, and greens, carrots, garden peas (soft and steamed) cabbage sometimes, and they have cuttlefish bone, and also millets. And some apple.
Fresh water, a nest boy they don't really use and a whole room to go around.

anma

Hm. That diet and husbandry seem pretty good, so I don't know why this would be happening all of a sudden.

Icearstorm wrote: anma

Hm. That diet and husbandry seem pretty good, so I don't know why this would be happening all of a sudden.

I was thinking about a disease, but the patch is so clear, and the other patch has disappeared , i don't know.
They are courting each other atm.

Also I meant nest box, not "nest boy"
They don't have a finch sex doll or anything like that XD

She doesn't over preen herself or scratching herself,so I don't think it's any skin disease.
I'll steam more carrots and just wait.

Not to necro an old thread, but I'm having this problem as well. I know exactly why it happens, and it is just due to extremely strong nesting/breeding instincts. That is what starts it anyways.

Zebra's will either pluck feather for nesting material (even if they have good nesting material available), to "encourage" this mate/potential mate as part of courting.

That is what starts it anyways. What then can happen is they start to fixate on the feathers that grow back in and the area around those feathers. So during preening sessions they will happily be preening the one with the plucked neck, come across a weird feather on the neck, pluck it, and preen more and pluck some of the ones around the area as well because it isn't "right" or just because they like the soft under feathers that are exposed.

This will happen ever time they preen. And quickly you end up with a bald spot like this.

What I'm trying to figure out, is how to treat the bald spot. The bald area gets a little infected, you can get ingrown feathers, the constant need to replace those feathers is draining on the health of the plucked bird, it just snowballs and after some time can become a big problem.