molt question

[KOTurkeyRanch]

My tom molted and he is done now, but his back tail feathers still have the plasticy stuff on it about 3 inches or so long. Half of his feathers are like this. What caused this? Lack of protein?

 

[CoopCrazy]

Hopefully someeon can help

 

[KOTurkeyRanch]

should have clarified. half of his tail feathers are like that

 

[Blisschick]

It's just the feather cuticle. The turkey will eventually groom this off.

 

[turkaholic]

KO, For what it's worth, I saw the photos you posted of your birds and they do look nice, especially the Red Palm. However, when I looked at your red bronze gobbler, something struck me as odd and may explain your gobblers feather appearance. It's his neck! It appears that it is shorter than normal and he is thus unable to reach the back and tail feathers for proper grooming. Several years ago I hatched out a group of bronzes and noticed that one had a noticably shorter neck than the others. As he matured it became more and more obvious that he couldn't reach his neck back far enough to preen the back half of his body, and thus looked a lot like yours does. He also couldn't get the feather sheath off the quill. Needless to say, I didn't use him as a breeder because I wasn't sure if this was a genetic abnomally or a defect due to incubation.

 

[KOTurkeyRanch]

Quote:
I noticed this to, but most of the "shells" are off. He molted awhile ago and its just like 3 or 4 that heave these.