Eek! Molting?

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:22 pm

I came home today and found feathers all over my gouldian's cage. When I caught the male to look at him, it looks like he's simply dropped the first 5-7 flight feathers off each wing! Is this...normal? He's very happy and bouncing around as usual just...can't fly so good atm.

TammyS · Post by **TammyS** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:47 am

No, I would say that is not normal to happen in just one day. Are there any other finches in the cage? I would suspect someone might be chasing him and pulling them out.

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:51 pm

Only him and his girl, and they always get along very well -- even cuddle at night which I'm always told gouldians aren't supposed to.

It's very strange.

He's eating well hopping around and singing to her, no broken shafts, just feathers gone.

rfn1 · Post by **rfn1** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:40 pm

I ask because I discovered my little female star finch having lost much of her breast feathers in just a couple of days. I wonder if this is natural or if she is in bad shape. What did you discover?

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:37 pm

Well there's no signs of a molt yet, I have been checking every few days (he doesn't *like* being caught but is pretty calm about it)... The flight feathers are growing back in nicely.

I'm wondering if he didn't have the equivalent of a "night fright" and just knock them all out

.

He can almost fly correctly again now, and is singing his girl a veritable opera, which she pretends to ignore as she eats her millet.

They finally have names now, too, Vash and Milly, after some anime characters I like.

FWIW the star finches we have at work molted recently and it started that way, with most of the breast feathers. I've never seen this so I panicked and isolated them, but the feathers all grew back in nicely and no sign of a recurrence.

FINCHforum

Eek! Molting?

Eek! Molting?

what did you find out about this molting incident