Two of my ducks are missing pretty large quantities of breast feathers. I'm wondering if the other duck(s) pulled them out? Nothing appears to be growing in underneath. I can try to get pics, but until then, is this another molt? I honestly thought that what was there was adult feathers. Sure looked like them, anyway. The ducks in question are all 6.5 weeks old.
We have a piece of wire fence separating our two boys and four girls in their "barn" but suddenly noticed one of the girls, Nugget, started developing a bald patch on her breast. After as few days it was pretty much her whole right breast! We decided it must be that the wire isn't small enough to stop the boys reaching through anecdote pulling out clumps of her feathers (the girls like to sit next to the fence) so we decided the best action would be to attach some smaller wire to the existing frame. The bald patch stopped getting bigger and she has just finished her moult and grown back a beautiful covering of feathers on her breast now I doubt they would all of a sudden lose lots of breast feathers, it seems to me that only the wing feathers all come off at once, so I would suspect pulling. Monitor the situation and see if it gets worse. If it does it probably is the others pulling them. Maybe you could try separating the two who are losing feathers and see if it makes a difference. You may have the same thing as me though and will have to wait until they moult for new feathers to grow. Have they moulted recently?
