Is anyone familiar with this?

[J.R.]

Has anyone dealt with this sort of feather loss? Over the last couple of weeks one of my Rouen Drakes has started losing large amounts of feathers around his bill and eyes. He doesn’t seem to be having any other issues, he’s eating well,preening after swimming in their pond, and isn’t lethargic. I’m wondering if it’s maybe due to stress from the high temps we’ve been having. Should I be concerned?

 

[Lil Drake40]

Do you notice him scratching these places he maybe doing it to himself.

 

[Lil Drake40]

Do they have fresh water for bathing you said pond is it fresh natural pond?

 

[dotporter]

My first thought is that he's reaching his head through the fence. If he is, he could just be rubbing the feathers off against the fence while he's reaching for whatever treat he sees on the other side.

 

[J.R.]

I haven’t seen him scratching or reaching through the fence or anything like that. But I could see how it could happen. I only have the two guys in the picture, their water sources are a 165 gallon pre formed pond that gets cleaned/filled once a week and a 5 gallon bucket that gets changed twice a day. I only recently put in the new pond, prior to that they used a kiddie pool. Stress from the environment change perhaps?

 

[chickens really]

Yes he is going into a nuptial molt...Normal..

 

[BlackHackle]

View attachment 1474451 Has anyone dealt with this sort of feather loss? Over the last couple of weeks one of my Rouen Drakes has started losing large amounts of feathers around his bill and eyes. He doesn’t seem to be having any other issues, he’s eating well,preening after swimming in their pond, and isn’t lethargic. I’m wondering if it’s maybe due to stress from the high temps we’ve been having. Should I be concerned?

I had this same thing happen with my Buff Orp ducks and Cayuga ducks when their water got dirty

 

[J.R.]

Thanks chickens, I’ve never heard of nuptial molt before, guess I’ll be doing a little research on it!

 

[J.R.]

I had this same thing happen with my Buff Orp ducks and Cayuga ducks when their water got dirty

Was it a widespread issue with your buff orps and cayuga’s or just a random few?

 

[BlackHackle]

Was it a widespread issue with your buff orps and cayuga’s or just a random few?

Widespread, the whole flock