Years ago I had finches. The plucking phenomenon is sometimes called "over preening." Sometimes the birds do it to themselves due to stress. But othertimes a dominant finch will do it to the others. Because the latter was the case for me, I had to put my zebra finch pair into separate cages. Also, I read that if finches are ready to nest, they will pluck feathers for that, sometimes to the point where they have bald patches. A website recommends providing soft material in the cage to give the finches other options than their own feathers. Hope that gets you started. Best of luck! Cheers!

said kingpigeon 2005.12.22 at 12:43:56 PST