Gosling plucking ducklings bare

[thndrdancr]

My lil gosling I have in with 3 slightly older ducklings picked the ducklings bald overnight!

Now that he is started feather/down plucking, he just wont stop! Any way to correct this? Goodness, my poor baby ducks look like they are ready to be roasted!

They are only a two weeks old, the gosling a week and half. Its a little African and the only one I had hatch. So any suggestions?

 

[Alas]

did you just recently put them together? I put my 1 week old gosling with a 3 day old and the older one was doing the same thing. I put a screen between the two so they could see each other and lay next to each other w/o any picking. After a couple of days I was able to remove the screen.

 

[thndrdancr]

Another sleepless night for me too.

No, I have had them together from the get-go. This just started night before last. I was supplementing with grass and oats, which goosie loves, but am wondering if she wasnt getting enough protein. Here I was trying to avoid angel wing and now she is protein deficient apparently. Got high protein feed in there with her right now but she still is fascinated and wants to pluck the poor things.

Screen is a good idea, had cardboard and they are ALL unhappy. Thanks Alas.

 

[Denninmi]

I think it's just instinctive behavior. They are grazers, and they just seem to want to pluck.

The Pilgrim girl I hatched last Friday afternoon is already an incredibly strong "plucker" at six days old. She was pulling hair on my head and my arms this morning, and sort of pinching as she went. It wasn't all that comfortable at six days old, and another week or so, it's not going to feel good. Yikes!

I better be able to get her outside on grass soon -- weather is totally awful here, wet, wet, wet and cold to cool.

 

[Lund Poultry]

geese LOVE to chew on anything. I pull up the whole dandalion (root, dirt and all) and toss in with all of our waterfowl babies. They eat,chew and seem very happy and I raise calls and geese together with No problems. you can put a whole head of lettuce in there and the goose will pull at that as well. Hope all goes well