Sometimes, you do things you do not understand completely.  There was even a point in time last week when I was doing something against my natural instinct: I wasn’t doing anything, and that was what troubled me.  You see, I got this advise from Kurt. After telling him that my female zebra is losing its feathers from its back towards its head, he said I should just let it be.  Without understanding why that is the case I did exactly what he said.

A bird is not supposed to look ugly, right?   That’s where my worries were coming from when I saw my female zebra finch almost totally bald on its backside. I only noticed it last Friday, and upon closer observation(for an hour or so), it seems the bird is plucking its own feathers. I immediately took the bird out of its cage for inspection. There were no wounds, and thankfully, there were no termites or parasites as I have initially surmised. I forced-bath it by gently massaging the bird with water, and then I put it back in the cage and observed it until the evening. When it was apparent that the bird is still losing its feathers and it might probably be sick(although it is as lively and chirpy as ever), I immediately sent Kurt a message about the situation, and I was a little worried when all he said was that “pinapabayaan ko lang ang mga ibon kong ganyan.” Doing nothing given the situation seemed preposterous then, so I tried researching for articles on the web.

Here’s a helpful article I found. It says that the most probable reason why finch lose their feathers is due to stress. It also suggested proper diet, sunlight and even treatments for possible worm and/or protozoal infections, but regarding the latter highly unlikely for my finch based on the condition, I focused on providing them with the best possible diet of egg food (mashed boiled egg with the shell and greens like cucumber and cabbage) and exposing them to more sunlight. Other than that, I took the advise of Kurt and didn’t do anything drastic, considering I’ve always tried giving them proper diet and light in the first place.

Good news is that after just three days, new feathers are already visible on the finch’s skin. I’m not sure if the extra cabbage helped, but I was surely happy I didn’t give the bird any antibacterials or worm removal diet. Who knows what could have happened if I did? This is certainly one of the times when doing nothing and not worrying pays off. The bird was naturally, just losing its feathers.