plucking feathers

[mini 1]

i have a 4 mnth old female hh,i have noticed the past few days she has been plucking the feathers off her chest.... just wondering have any of ye experienced this with your birds, if so wat is the cause?

[Kat 3]

boredom... habit... boredom... habit... boredom.. are possibilities. Have you looked for critters in its feathers (mites) is it in good feather?

Can you tell us about the way the bird has been bred, how long you've had it and the age it was when you took it on. Also the way its housed now and how its accomodation is situated on your property in relation to your house and other gardens etc? What training have you been doing and how much time daily are you spending with it?

[bigbulls 26]

I put this question up a long time ago. We used to have a female HH that plucked its chest feathers as soon as it was taken out for manning and started to have its weight dropped. It was a bird with an unknown past and we never got to the bottom of it. It only did at the start of the season and then stopped, it came out of the flight feather perfect and about three weeks in it pulled its chest feathers for a couple of days then stopped. It didn't seem to affect it but it looked damn awful, raising its weight back up again didn't stop it and we put it down to a mysterious habit. I would like to know how this maps out and if any one can shed light on it.

[jasper65 6]

with Kat and bigbulls on this one... some have strange habits which can never be answered. I know its totaly different but I have heard of Parrots doing this and even a Raven plucking its feathers out of its thighs. think this is mainly down to bordom and frustration.........

[mini 1]

she is a parent reared bird... got her last sat off a good friend of mine who has 30 yrs experience with birds of prey! he has never came across this wit any of his birds, so told me to put it up on the forum. i try and spend at least 4-5 hrs daily with her because she is still a small bit nervy...... tanx for your comments lads

[grovsey 74]

with Kat and bigbulls on this one... some have strange habits which can never be answered. I know its totaly different but I have heard of Parrots doing this and even a Raven plucking its feathers out of its thighs. think this is mainly down to bordom and frustration.........

im with you also guys on that one ,how often do you fly ur bird ect ? or is it sat there most of the week and flown at weekends

[mini 1]

she was only taken from the parents last sat.... u dont expect her to b flyin perfectly allready do u, she is just jumpin to d fist

[Millet 4,497]

You did not state the above in your first post so you will get question's asked like grovesy's..

[bigbulls 26]

i have a 4 mnth old female hh,i have noticed the past few days she has been plucking the feathers off her chest.... just wondering have any of ye experienced this with your birds, if so wat is the cause?

Any progress report on this one bud, is she still plucking and if so to what degree ?

[j j m 6,479]

if its not a mite disorder,it could be bordom

[jasper65 6]

Just look what this cockerel did to itself when it got bored, it then walked straight into the oven ......

[Hammerwoodfalconry 1]

I have seen this in several Harris hawks , as has been stated already its normally down to boredom , as it is in parrots , but a bird in this early stage of training shouldn't be doing this already , i would take it to the vets for a skin sample , its painless , they just take a scrape of skin cells and sent them off for tests , there is a certain mite that lives under the skin that causes irritation , its almost invisible to the naked eye so you probably wont even know that its there , sorry i can't remember the name now , i was also told by a vet that thi could be down to a case of worms , though that may of been a way of getting me to buy panicure ,lol .

if you bought this bird in it may be worth contacting the breeder to see if he has had this in any of his youngsters in the past , just an idea , hope this helps .