help!!! duck has lots of feathers plucked and bloody pin feather !! with pictures

korme5

In the Brooder
5 Years
May 12, 2014
50
1
29
Hi guys

So I just found my smallest duck Chicken Fat with patches of feathers missing and sores left where they were. He also has a bloody feather shaft under his wing where all the feathers have been pulled out and the shaft left behind. They are sore and he doesn't like me touching them. He is a runt duck as he and his nest mate are both three months and while the drake is almost fully fledged and full grown chicken fat is only just starting to get his wing feathers. I have 2 ful grown females as well. They all share a house then free range during the day they have never had a problem before as even though chicken fat is the smallest he would go after the big ducks and they would avoid him. They do also have a chicken that lives in there with them who grew up with the 2 females. Could the chicken be plucking him?? He is in an Epsom salt bath now but what else should I do?? Please help here are some pictures.
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this is just him so you can see that he is little and even with his big feathers he is still quite yellow

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This is where the bloody pin feather is it is hard to see because he was to sore to lift the wing up

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These are his scragally feathers, the feathers are missing from on his wings and above his legs.

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And this is the biggest missing patch

Oh yeah I have seen a rat in the house could it do this??

Thanks
 
My duck has a similar problem but she doesn't seem sore and lets me rummage through her feathers to look. Its patchy underneath her top layer of feathers around the base of her neck, underneath she had a lot of scraggly feathers as well as pin feathers but what I'm concerned about are what look like black feather stumps. At first i thought they were huge black bugs half tunneled into her skin but on closer look it seems like a feather shaft without the feather that's turned black inside. It doesn't look like blood and part of the black bit looks fuzzy. She doesn't seem bothered at all and i can't see any mites i just noticed when her feathers parted while she was preening. Any ideas?
 
Just saw this - is she an only duck, or are there too many drakes?

I would bring her in at least overnight, let her swim in a lukewarm tub of water for a while and get some more ideas. If you can post photo's that would be very helpful.

I won't be online for a while tonight, please bear with me.

Also, I suggest you post over on the Duck Forum - more duck people view that forum.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks
 
Is just her and a drake. I think he's pulling her feathers out as she is staying to look patchy and i found blood on her this morning. Getting another female tomorrow so hopefully this will solve the problem. Thanks
 
I would put a divider fence between them so they can see each other, sit next to each other, but he cannot get at her. Some drakes do not know when to stop, and can, in some cases, end up killing the female.
 

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