Watch the birds for a bit--are they pecking each other and yanking feathers? Are they picking themselves? Do you find feathers on the ground, or none? If a bird does yank a feather, does it then eat it or spit it out? How is their skin--dry and itchy? Eating feathers can be a sign of a nutritional deficiency, usually protein. Overcrowding and boredom can lead to pecking and picking in general. Since you say the feathers are dull (dry skin can go along with this), you might try adding some oils to their diet--pet stores sell some feed supplement oils for birds that you can mix into their daily feed ration, or set some vitamin E capsules and mix a few capsules contents into the daily ration. Don't mix it into the feed barrel itself, you don't want it to spoil and go rancid. Try changing up their diet a bit-- offer some table scraps once in a while, live mealworms, fresh greens--chickens are omnivores, like you and I, and like you and I, don't thrive on just one type of food. Velvet ~:>

Unfortunately I've had alot of experience with our dog killing drakes. I would shut the dog in the garage and let the poultry out to range. But DH let the dog out... and a couple other times it happened. The dog goes for the drakes, making me think it's an odor thing. The description of your drake is like what some of mine looked like. I would suspect the dog did it. Racoons are night creatures. Would the dog let another creature or other dog around his territory without putting up a fuss? I doubt a small animal would come close to where a dog is. Our dog wasn't a poultry killer until a little kid came to visit while I was gone, went into the poultry pen and started chasing all my geese and ducks. Dog got excited -- and has killed ever since. Now my poultry are sentenced to their pen because confining the dog doesn't work and I'm tired of dead drakes. Anyway, I don't think you should rule out the dog unless you see the other culprit in action.

I live in a typical suburban street in Southern Sacramento, California... WHICH is surrounded by field after field... very agricultural. I think it is more likely to be a barred owl than a turkey...I have never seen a turkey around here.

I realize my last post wasn't worded the way I wanted and thus caused some confusion. Lets see if I can make my thoughts clearer...LOL. What I was implying is, that if they loose one on one side, they usually loose the corresponding feather on the other side. This is pretty much the case for all birds with the exception of waterfowl which loose all the flight feathers at the same time and are thus flightless for a period of time in mid summer. Some species may not molt ALL their feathers in one molt (many species have partial molts) and in Psittacines, it can be a much longer process than for other birds, but it would be highly non-normal for a bird to molt wing feathers on one side and none on the other. That was my cause for concern. For a bird to do this in the wild, it would have missing areas on one side of the wing (one or more feathers depending on stage of molt) and none on the other...making it more difficult to fly with reduced lift, breaking, etc., on one side of its body (imagine an airplane wing with 2 or three holes of various sizes as "feathers" grow in and others are lost). My Quaker does molt all his wing feathers and tail feathers every year. When I used to keep a few primary feathers trimmed, they would always have to be trimmed every year, because they were all lost every year. I don't know the time period exactly, but it may last about 3 months total for a complete molt. Many birds go through two (or more) molts a year, particularly those like ducks, and most birds that have alternate plumages (non-breeding, breeding, adult, juvenile, etc, etc.). Since parrots only have one basic plumage, molt may be a much more prolonged process. Prolonged molt actually may be more advantageous than a more rapid molt, where more feathers are lost per given unit of time. Molt is an extremely nutritionally demanding process (as already illuded too), particularly in regards to protein consumption. Thus, a prolonged molt where fewer feathers are lost at one time may actually be less stressful on the bird. For parrots, that are mostly vegetarians, protein may be hard to find and consume in mass quantities to facilitate a rapid molt (with the exclusion of nuts of course). For other species that feed heavily on insects or other prey during the majority of the year such as ducks, warblers, flycatchers, sandpipers, plovers, blackbirds, hawks, owls, herons, etc, etc. (as examples, you get the idea), more rapid molts are probably less stressful. Thus for parrots to find adequate and reliable sources of protein for a rapid body molt may be diffcult, which could explain why Psittacine molt for the most part has evolved to be a much more prolonged process? (of course this is just a hypothesis, I haven't researched this in detail) In any event, to only have feathers grow back on one wing (assuming they molted out) and to not have any molt (replaced) on the other side, is what leads me to believe it is non-normal and should be checked out to be safe. Thanks for letting me express my views. BN