zebra finch losing feathers

Question
hello

I have eight finches. Six of them are zebra finches and two of them are society finches. They are all in one big cage together. I recently noticed that one of the male zebra finches is losing feathers on the back of its head. I wanted to know what the cause of this could be?

Elizabeth Frensdorff

Answer
There are a few reasons as to why he is losing feathers.
1. Zebras, while excellent birds for first-timers, are agressive and will fight eachother
2. There are bully birds and you may have one thrashing the other birds
3. If the society finches are a pair, the male will protect it's female from other birds (I had this problem and in the end had to seperate the societies because he wouldn't let anyone near the female or the nest)
4. It could be stress causing them to fall out. Has he lost feathers anywhere else?

Now, there are answers to all of these senarios so don't worry about that.
1. If your male is fighting with other birds, move him into a cage all by himself and see if the feathers grow back.
2. How to tell if you have a bully bird is to watch the cage and see which bird attacks the others the most.
Remove the bully and put him in a cage away from the main one for a while and put him back (if you hate caring for two cages) and keep an eye on him. If he attacks the other birds again, sell him.
3. Now if it's a society, just move the societies into a different cage. As long as they're not alone, societies are good.
4.If it is stress, just move the little guy out and keep him away from the main cage and see that he gets quiet time. This is a good treatment for sick and stressed out birds. After a few weeks you should be able to put a healthy bird back into the main cage.

Hope this helps.