I recently bought a silver duckwing female that i felt is
I do not recommend any of the forced molting methods that are available to you. There is a hormone injection that you can do, but you probably can't find a vet with this hormone. The usual method is to withdraw feed and water for 2-3 days. You can't do this in hot weather or you will kill all the birds. Molting is about the most stressful time in a birds life and complicating it with dehydration and starvation is not my idea of a good thing, but the method does work.
outstanding, however the reason Im sure she was for sale is beacauce
her tail feathers were badly damaged by mice. My question is how can
i force her into a molt this time of year or should i even worry
about it . She's in the breeding pen with my female breeding line,
and laying quite well. I probably wont show her until October.
By Rokimoto on Sunday, April 14, 2002 - 11:00 am:
The normal molt cycle has older birds molting around May, so don't do anything and don't put her on artificial light and see what happens. If you want to show her in October, you want her getting new feathers as close to October as you can manage.
The feather damage may not be mice. Hold the feathers up to the light. If you see very small holes in the feathers she could have an infestation of feather mites. Really bad infestations can leave parts of the shaft clean and look really ugly. These mites are so small that you can't really see them. If it is feather mites you will have to treat all your birds and retreat within 14 days and until you think that you got them all. It could take 3-4 dustings.