FINCHforum

hello. my zebra finches apache and tear recently laid 4 eggs, they were supplied with a large amount of nesting material and such and they seemed happy, they incubated the eggs and 2 little baby zf hatched unfortunately they didn't seem to take to one of the babies and they didnt feed it and it passed away 4 days after it was born. they now have one very happy and noisy little baby who is about 2 weeks old, they're being very good parents except the male is behaving a bid oddly.
He has been pulling out a lot of his own feathers for about a week and has a large bald patch on his back, he's now realised that it hurts him, and he's probably a tad chilly at night, he's decided he will pull out the females feathers in large clumps.
i dont understand why he's doing this as the baby seems warm enough and they have plenty of nesting material in with the baby, so why does he feel it necessary to pull out his and her feathers in orderto keep it warm?
could it be because there are still 2 eggs in the nest?
Could he be doing it for attention from the female, as he gets very bored and lonely whilst she looks after the baby and is always very happy when she leaves the nest to go and get something to eat and he'll join her making his chuckling happy noise. ( i know all my zebra finches noises, its probably not an achievement but it makes me feel happy )
any help would be greatly appreciated. =)

Is the baby ready to fledge? Maybe the dad is trying to get more nesting material because he wants to raise another brood already. The other thought is he may be bored. You can buy (preener) parrot toys for your finches. They enjoy pulling and nibbling on these and it can give them something else to pull at aside from feathers!

Birds feather-pluck for many reasons, but not really to keep the baby warm. They keep babies warm by sitting on them when they are little--once they are feathered out, they can keep themselves warm for the most part. In this case, even though you think there is plenty of nesting material available, he may feel he needs more, and so will pluck. He may start plucking that little baby once it comes out of the nest. You may be forced to separate him for a while.

Check out the Finch Information Center, linked at left. There is a good article on feather-plucking there.

I might separate them, i'm keeping a very close eye on them atm, i'm going to give them a new toy to play with and see how they go. It's less than a week till the baby fledges so it might be that he wants to start breeding again.

possible.
My zebra pair had eggs a fews days after the chicks fledged, so they mated before the chicks fledged.