Mother cockatiel plucking baby's head

[azbirdlover]

Has anyone ever had a problem with a momma plucking her baby's feathers off his head? Spike is ony 5 weeks old and we noticed it today. Any suggestions? I don't want to take him away from her. Thanks
7/15 update....she is now starting to pluck his neck too....I feel so bad for the baby...

 

[nimuemerlin]

Unless you want the mother to kill the baby, you'd better take it away and hand feed it. Hand feeding is not as daunting as you might think. We had the same thing happen with one of our sun chicks. We took both chicks and hand fed them. The formerly plucked chick healed and lived for a few weeks and died anyway unfortunately. I suspect that the mom "knew" something wasn't right with the chick she was plucking. Nature is very efficient and does not waste energy on offspring that are suspected of not being able to survive. This may or may not be the case with your chick. Some birds just pluck the weaker ones and there is no good reason for it. My opinion only: allowing a bird to be severely and deliberately plucked by another is animal abuse.