duckling is feather eating UPDATE bloody problem HELP!

[mymoneypit]

I know this is an old thread, but I am having the exact same problem! Month old babies eating feathers. I have a dozen ducklings. At first it was just one, who I had separated but now it is the three biggest ones (drakes) doing it to all the others. They are on Dumor starter, which is already 20% protein, plus they range all day and I give tasty snacks like scrambled eggs and bugs I catch, which they do eat happily.

I can't keep them all in separate places, and when I tried putting the biters together, the first one was awful yanking feathers from the others. like he was trying to make up for lost time eating them since hes been banished from the others.

DH told me his friend said muscovies are mean to other animals, but I think if they were just plucking each other to fight or be mean, they wouldn't be eating the feathers, and this has been going on for 2 weeks now.

 

[Amiga]

I wish I had some good answers - what I have read is that crowding can cause this. Are they in a fairly small area at night?

 

[mymoneypit]

theres 11 in a 20 sqft brooder pen at night only. a little tight, I suppose, but they get the whole side yard to graze all day. 4 of them are leaving next week, so I'll have 8 in there then. If I have to I'll separate them into smaller groups, right now I don't have a bigger safe place to put them at night, we have coons coyotes, everything.