What is going on with my Naked Necks???

[Rose66]

I have about 10 NN hens that are 1 1/2 years old. A few months ago, several started losing feathers and I assumed they were starting to molt but pretty quickly a few more started loosing feathers and now all but two of them are literally naked and none of them are growing in new feathers. I have checked them all for visible mites and lice and I see nothing. I also have alot of other breeds of hens and none of them are loosing feathers (except a few that have truly molted and grown back all their feathers already). I feel like if the NN's had mites or lice, then all of the other breeds would too, right? The NN's are eating, drinking, and laying eggs just like all the other hens are so......what the heck is going on with no feathers??????? A couple of the NN's do have a few sparse brittle looking quills in some of their bare spots but most just have bare skin. We keep a very close eye on their bare skin because they tend to get cuts/abrasions such as the one in the first picture on the hen's right side of her abdomen. I assume because they don't have feathers to protect their skin. We put antibiotic ointment on the cuts and they heal up fine. The one in the picture was one of the worst cuts and it has since healed up completely.

These are my first NN's so I don't know if this is something common with NN's or if I have something really weird going on with just my NN's. I'm attaching three pictures of one of the NN's. My husband is holding her upright by her legs which we wouldn't normally do but I wanted ya'll to be able to see her body really good. If anyone has any idea on what is happening to my NN's I would greatly appreciate your help.

 

[Twistedfeather]

I'm wondering if this is hereditary (A naked neck plus a Plymouth Rocks creates a featherless chicken) I was researching that the Naked Neck Gene is caused by a partially dominant allele so what would happen if it was a full dominant allele? I could be overthinking this and it might just be something simpler but there's a condition in frizzledness that causes brittle feathers and that's why I thought it was genetic?

 

[Rose66]

All 10 NN's are hatchery birds so who knows what their breeding is other than having a necked neck. The double frizzle gene is exactly what I thought about too! I feel so sorry for them and am wondering how they will handle the coming winter. Of course, I won't be hatching eggs from them and passing on their "neckedness."

 

[Rose66]

Well good news on my Naked Necks! We had our first really cold spell and they all started sprouting feathers over night. They are now fully feathered and look normal. I guess they were just having really hard molts and the weather turning reminded them they needed to regrow.

I don't know any other explanation. Any way whats important to me is that they are all pretty and warm again.

Thanks,
Rose66