Pintail with half a tail

[sportinglife]

Decided to mount up one of my own ducks today. A basic back out flying pose to put in the showroom. Started cleaning the quils of the tail and noticed that something looked odd. This bird only has 1 tail feather on its left side, the right side looks fine. It looks like they were never there, no pins no holes in the skin, nothing but smooth skin where feathers should have grown. I don't know why I didn't notice it when I decided to keep it to mount. I would never have missed something like that when examining a customers bird but I sure goofed on mine. What really upsets me is that I shot 2 other sprigs that year that I just breasted and tossed out the skins.
Anybody ever seen that before ?

By the way if anybody wants to feel sorry for me and gift me a pintail I would be greatful.

[DL]

I've had several birds with 1-4 missing feathers like that. I figured they might have taken some shot in the wazoo and feathers never grew back.

[alan webfoot]

ever see a sprig grow in upside down??I got one that at first glance ,,I thought it had been clipped with shot and got the shaft twisted but when I looked closer all the way to the skin the qill was wrong side up!!!