what sex and what happened to this bird

[joe125]

My best guess is: A male (Maybe) scalped by the more dominate male,or female, then boinked it's self to death.

It's hard to tell from the pics, and without being able to inspect the body directly....My COD guess would be sexually induced pecking of the skull region, followed by the VIC. sealing the deal, by self induced head trauma.

The "Scalping" aspect doesn't appear to be a mortal wound, to me. Don't beat yourself up. I have several birds die a year, by "Unexplained circumstances"! I'm not even going to comment on the vent sexing thing, and I don't even know if it works on a dead bird. Sorry for your loss!

 

[Chinchilla2]

Looks like a cross between head bonk and some dominate hen on passive hen aggression. I'm going by the size of the head in comparison to the development of the feathers here. The head doesn't look as "blocky" as a male when the feathers are that filled out.

If you have two birds together that are head pecking but no mounting going on, separate them. After about three days, if one or both are males you will have the vent gland and foaming appear. If they wind up being females, then enjoy dinner with the aggressive female. There is a good possibility that she will turn on any male you put with her.

The best way I had of sexing the Tuxedo and A&M Whites when I was breeding was that I banded three males. When my other birds got big enough to start breeding, I would put one in the cage with one of the males. If the male did his little "Look at Me" scream and instantly tried to mount, I knew I had a female. If he fluffed up and tried to bowl the newcomer over, 99% of the time the young 'un was a male.

If you are having head pecking problems, it may be the heat wave we're having. Put some misters up and that may tone down the damage a bit.