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Post by renehinton on Aug 27, 2007 14:26:46 GMT -5
I have 6 juvenile musckovy ducks and they are pulling each other's wing feathers out and eating them! They have been doing this for several weeks now, since I got them at about 6 weeks old. They almost have no wing feathers left! What could cause this behavior? I am feeding them chick starter, corn and fresh grass.
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Post by Entekuken on Sept 1, 2007 11:13:24 GMT -5
It's usually a protein or a penning issue. They either need a higher protein feed, more animal protein, or they're in too small of a pen and are stressed. You can try adding hard boiled eggs to their diet, just hard-boil and mash, or you can add something such as fishmeal, or find a commercial food that uses animal products in it. The poultry concentrate I use has porcine product in it. You can also try black oil sunflower seeds, while not animal protein, this is a great feed full of fats (helps feather condition) and trace vit & mins. If you're feeding chick starter, there's no need to feed the corn, you're actually lowering the protein content of the chick starter and growing birds need protein.
As far as picking, while it usually starts innocently, it is a learned behavior and once it starts it's hard to get stopped. I'd remove the pickers from the group - removing the picked birds means that they'll have to re-introduced to the flock at a later date and they'll have to fight, once again, for a place in the flock. Re-introducing the bullies means that they're the outsiders and will have to work their way into the flock, but they're more capable of it.
HTH Picking can injure wings creating slipped wing...
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