Male pulling females feathers.

HepburnShoeMee · Post by **HepburnShoeMee** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:10 pm

My zebra finches are bugging me. I had babies born on April 11th, so today they are 11 days old. They are doing well. They are busy with feeding and I thought things were going well. This is not their first clutch either.

I noticed today that the male pulled feathers out of the female today.
Do I maybe need to give the male some nesting material to keep him busy?
He can't really be wanting to make another nest could he? Or maybe wanting to add to his current nest? I just didn't think he would be doing this until I witnessed it myself.

Thanks.

Post by **Sally** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:33 pm

Unfortunately, Zebras are real feather-pluckers, and breeding seems to make it worse. Watch him once those babies leave the nest, he will probably be yanking at their feathers, too.

williep · Post by **williep** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:50 am

Sally is spot on as usual; there is a great chance that the zebra male is thinking about nesting again. The babies should fledge any day now and when they leave the nest he could start building again. In my case they laid eggs and started a new clutch before the babies weaned.

You can try giving him some white feathers or tissue to keep him occupied but there is no guarantee that this will work.

Good luck and keep us posted

HepburnShoeMee · Post by **HepburnShoeMee** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:24 pm

I gave them some nesting material to keep him busy. He put the material right ON TOP of the chicks! What the heck?! Ha. He seems to be in a bit of a rush. I took it away after a while - I can't believe how nuts my male zebra is. He has quite the crazy personality.

Thanks everyone.

moe moe2 · Post by **moe moe2** » Thu May 01, 2008 6:15 pm

my male is just the same so bad i thought my female was gonna die (remember that thread) well i dont know why but after several months her feather started to grow back and she was doing ok then he started his mess again. i bought some raffia and attached it to the cage to give him something to do. he would pull on until he couldn't pull any more and the he would still pull. BUT when ever they sat together on the perch he would just sit and pull her feather and she would sit right there and let him do it. so her back is bald again i do see some pin feather but what can you do to stop him. the woman in the pet shop told me to use the aloe spray (trying to sell me some) but since i had pure aloe juice at home i made some with after and aloe . it didn't help. any suggestion