Male pulling feathers from female

[Janiemoose 0]

I am a new zebra finch owner of only a few weeks. I am delighted with my new little birds who last week successfully hatched three chicks. My problem is that the male finch has now started tugging feathers from the females tail area and I don't know what to do. She doesn't cry out when he does this but I'm sure it can't be nice. If I seperate him then she is left with the stress of feeding the three little chicks herself. What can I do to help this situation?

[Emmy 528]

Try tying some string to the cage and he may go for that rather than the female's tail.

Use just ordinary parcel string cut 6/7 10cm lengths fold it in half and loop it through the cage wires. this has worked for me in the past.

but If he then continues to peck at the female I would separate them.

The female should be able to feed the three chicks on her own.

Hope this helps.

Emmy

[Janiemoose 0]

Thank you so very much Emmy. I will certainly give this a go!

[Emmy 528]

If you need any more help please just post.

Emmy

[Janiemoose 0]

Hi Ammy,

just to let you know that hanging the tied string has really done the trick and our female now is showing re-growth of all her lost feathers ??

[Emmy 528]

So glad it has worked out for you - that had worked for me before-- I think the hardest part for me was getting the string tied through the bars while  all the time. 'talking' to the culprit  and  threatening if he didn't leave its mate alone and play with the string next time it wouldn't be the string  getting tied to the cage it would be him

Hope it continues to keep him amused.

Emmy

[Janiemoose 0]

Ha ha ??I can understand you totally and I am so relieved that your reply to my post has worked. We are all excited as we are just a few days away from fledge time now. Thank you, it is nice to know I have someone to help me as I'm such a novice. ???

[Emmy 528]

Anything you want to know please just ask and I'll help if I can.  I have actually hand reared a zebra finch (Shadow) and also 3 Bengalese.

If you go to 'Blogs'  my story about that  is there.  The title is  'Hand Rearing Birds'  there's photographs of the various stages of growth as well.

Thought you may like to see this - This is a cockatiel egg I have in the incubator and the photo was taken on the 2nd day after It showed it was fertile (4th October 2016)

10th October 2016 Same egg on the 8th day of incubation

Emmy