Turkey: New Feathers / Loosing feathers Question

turkey4me · #1 10/29/10, 12:54 PM

Hi everyone,

Can someone clarify something for me?

The Domestic Bronze Tom I rescued was beaten up pretty badly and most of his breast, tail and "side" feathers were torn off back in May / June. His wing feathers were fine for the most part.

Over the Summer, his feathers have come back and a few large areas that were "scabbed over" have fallen off to reveal some nice , healthy pink skin underneath.

Over the last few months (especially on his lower breast and "around the sides / in front of and underneath his wings area where the dead skin / scabs have fallen off, have gotten new "fuzzy baby bird like" gray feathers that have grown into pretty nice looking iridescent "big bird" feathers that looked pretty normal.

The areas of the bird that were not damaged have nice iridescent feathers that matched the new feather growth pretty well. However, over the last few weeks, all of the new feathers (whether be it from his doing his daily grooming or normal molting), have fallen off to reveal nice pink, healthy looking skin again.

Over the last week or so I can see new "baby" feather growth again on the lower breast area and along his wing area. These are the areas that were damaged before).

Since none of his other feathers (that weren't affected when he was attacked) have done this, I'm guessing this is normal and he will eventually have his normal feathers??? (Or is it normal for this to happen and they will grow back).

To me it kind of looks like when a Poult looses his initial baby feathers and get's his normal feathers. Is this the same thing happening?

I'm just curious, as the weather is getting colder and I want to keep an eye on it. Other then that he seems to be in tip top shape. Id rather ask a stupid question and learn rather than to let something go, so I figured I'd ask.

Cyngbaeld · #2 10/29/10, 08:49 PM

If he were molting normally, I'd expect all the feathers to molt pretty much at the same time. Is there any way you can get us a picture?

turkey4me · #3 10/29/10, 10:40 PM

Thanks Cyngbaeld,

I can get a few pics tomorrow , upload them to my server and post them. I was out this evening looking at him again.

The 2 areas where he had scabbing I can kind of understand him loosing the feathers (kind of). Apparently it looked like the new feathers came in through the large area of "scab" (I'm sure the drying scabs must have irritated him as well). It looks like as the scabs came off, so did the feathers.

He didn't have any scabs etc on the lower breast so I can't really see the cause there though. But that was the smaller area

A 3 areas though, have nice new, soft, gray feathers coming in. One area is still a bit pink but the skin looks very healthy. They do seem to come in pretty fast. The area under his wing that was pink last weekend now seems to be covered with thin, new fuzzy feathers already.

I'll post some pics. For all I know, since I've only had him for a short time, (and he did have some poultry lice when I got him), possibly he "had something" when I got him??.

He was certainly stressed initially, been though a lot between the fox, the wild Toms and then.... who knows what someone was feeding him before they released him into the wild.

Currently, in addition to his Poultry Pellets, scratch, some fresh veggies, I'm using about 1 tablespoon of Bragg's ACV per gallon of water (as well as a touch of Acidolphilus). The Codex food grade DE seemed to do well for the Poultry Lice, and I did manage to find the HI-Yield dusting sulfur and do one dusting in his bath, Which I'm sure really helped with the lice... (Thanks for your help on that one as well).