aggressive tufted roman geese

[Poultergeist]

I have a 4 foot by 8 foot enclosure with ten 3 week old tufted roman geese in my basement. I always supply adequate water and feed to them. Yesterday when I came home from my real job, I noticed 3 geese had severe rip wounds to their rear end area. Several feathers had violently been plucked out leaving large silver dollar size bloody wounds. One of the geese was the obvious aggressor as he continued to bite at their wounds as I watched. I then separated out this beast in one box, the wounded in another and left the remaining 6 in the enclosure. I treated their nasty wounds with Hydrogen Peroxide. Their feathers were completely plucked out leaving empty quill holes. Will they ever grow back? Any ideas as to why the aggression? Any ideas.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
They will grow back. But you have to keep them separate as any open wound on a bird will get bothered by the other birds. Cleaning with hydrogen peroxide is good. If you can get to a feed store and get a can of Blu-Kote that would be even better.

As far as the mean gosling, I've never had this happen som I'm stumped as what to do. Is it possible a dog or cat made the wounds, then the agressive one was just pecking at the wounds (as all birds do)?

I guess you'l just need to keep him separate until the wounds are healed and hope for the best.

 

[raindrop]

Maybe they are a little crowded? 4x8 feet is 32 square feet, so 3.2 square feet per bird. 4 to 5 square feet per bird is recommended.
Are they being fed lots of green feed so they have something to nibble on and plenty of fiber?
The Book of Geese says cannibalism/feather plucking is made worse by a diet of only pelleted feed, insufficient green feed, crowding, excessive temperature, and excessive light.