Micro Mites or what?

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elaines03

elaines03

Chirping
5 Years
Mar 29, 2014
16
1
52







Several of my girls have raw looking bottoms and chest areas. And the tail feathers are almost gone and gone completely on few. We've checked for mites/lice on them and in the coop but did not see anything. I've put DE on them and in the coop. I've attached a few pictures. Does anyone have any ideas what's going on. I saw one thread talking about "micro" or "depluming" mites and wonder if this is what is happening. The barred rock has no tail feathers and my Easter eggs don't either but they don't have raw spots either. Any ideas?
 
Regular mites do not cause feather loss except in extreme cases and depluming mites are rare. This looks like pretty classic featherpicking, which is a mild form of cannibalism. You need to apply Pick-No-More or a similar anti-picking lotion. If you can determine who is doing the picking, put her in segregation for a week or so and then do a hard reintroduction (basically just throw her back into the yard afterwards). Featherpicking can result from boredom, protein deficiency, or crowding, among other issues. You may want to switch your flock to a grower feed for the time being and take a look at your flock's housing to see if that may be the issue.
 
Welcome to the BYC flock! We are glad you joined us!

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I think Queen Misha hit the nail on the head - you've got a real feather plucker amongst your hens. I would take his advice.
 
Feather-plucking can be awful for birds on the nest and those on the roosts where they are most vulnerable. Some ways to abate the situation is to up the protein intake of your feed (i.e., cut down on chicken snacks and feed lots of high-protein meal worms) and, if you can figure out who the plucker is, perhaps peepers. If you have any "No Pik" solution, start slathering... Otherwise the pink skin will invite more pecking and if blood is drawn, well, then you've got a real problem.

I had a hen that looked positively mothy with all the short stubble. Unfortunately, had to wait for molting to occur for her to look normal again.
 

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