plucking

All of the babies have fledged and the older ones are largely weaned, but unfortunately I had to remove the 2 youngest babies from the clutch of 3 to hand feed since their parents were plucking their feathers so that they are almost bald on the chest and back.  For the first clutches in the fall, both pairs of parents did well.  For the current clutches, both sets of parents have been plucking the feathers of their babies to a certain degree.  And it's both the father and the mother.  After some discussion with other breeders, I feel that the cause, especially of the severe plucking of the youngest 2 babies, are because the parents do not want to feed them anymore and were trying to chase them off.  Other suggestions for plucking include too small of space (mine are in large flight cages, so less chance this is the cause), possible nutritional deficiency (less likely given mine gets all sorts of supplements), and too much protein/mealworms leading to hyper parents who want to mate again (there may be some merit here since I have been indulging them since they seem to wait for the mealworms twice a day to feed their babies).  I am going to force a longer wait time in between clutches next time (the parents were mating and displaying, so I went ahead and gave them their nest boxes back) and decrease amount of protein food especially in between clutches to avoid mating overdrive.

I am always learning new things about keeping birds and am so glad there are so many helpful bird-keepers.