Recent content by jmcjmc

Sorry, I totally forgot to update this. A day or two after the last post, she was acting bad. We figured it was the end. I'd say for a good 4 hours she just stood on the ground staring in the same direction. Sounds, mealworms, nothing got her attention. Her head was sort of sunken, her skin was...

They're in what I'd call a confined free range. They have a huge pen area with walls and a hardware cloth roof and a coop none of them have ever gone in. I mounted a nesting box on the wall and they all lay in there. I haven't seen her or her feathers in there. I've looked under any objects and...

Well I'm back with another weird one. I can't imagine you guys who own big flocks. I only have four hens and they're always a mystery. The hens all molted a couple months ago. All came out of molt within about a week of each other. All 4 began laying eggs. A few weeks later the RIR stopped...

Nope. My wife's been letting them just run around the backyard a lot lately, so I've had a lot of opportunity to see them. They act like... chickens. Lots of bug-hunting and plant eating. Lots of dust-bathing. Nothing abnormal and no scratching that I've noticed.

Sorry, I didn't get a notification of the reply. Here are some pics. These girls are only about a year and a half old, so I've never seen a full molt. I can't be sure this isn't molting, but it doesn't look like any molting I've ever read about. Their skin is still really red where feathers are...

Well I think I’m officially giving up. The ivermectin hasn’t stopped feather loss. On the Australorp she’s losing feathers on her wings now, too. Still no aggressive behavior I’ve seen. All hens still acting normal and laying normally. There’s one vet around here who treats poultry. He wants...

Also, maybe the tiniest glimmer of good news. My wife had been checking on the birds the last few days. I haven't been out there. But when doing the ivermectin dose today I noticed the back of the BS still looks really bad, but the red area is shrinking and most of her back now looks like normal...

Damn, I saw the reply that said 6 drops, I completely missed the reply that said for 5 weeks. I guess I'll start over. Two months without edible eggs is pretty sad.

Okay, I treated with Ivermectin a couple weeks ago. This might be a dumb question. If it is something like mites, and if the feathers won't grow back for a while, how do I know if I've resolved the issue? Do I just assume they're okay if it's not getting worse?

Yikes. I'll hope that's not the case for the moment. That wouldn't be good at all... They're all about a year old, give or take a few weeks. I guess I'm going to have to try and figure out how it's happening. We have kind of an unusual setup. They live in a pen that's wood walled, about...

Thanks for replying. I didn't do it, only because I'm hesitant to use serious chemicals unless totally necessary. I went to 4 local shops that seem to know chickens pretty well. They've always been able to answer my questions before. When I mentioned depluming mites they looked at me like I was...

Losing my mind. This is now all 4 birds. So I don't have just one pecking feathers. Lots of high protein treats given over the past month. All missing feathers above the tail and up their back, and below the vent. All still laying regularly. All skin where feathers have been lost is bright red...

I finally got one to sit still long enough to see the skin under the father loss area. Also giving them a mealworm/cricket supplement as of now that's 53% crude protein.

Alright I took some pictures. Every time I come to this site I learn something new, never heard of depluming mites before. As for "coop" space, it's not really an issue. They have a place where they can go indoors, but they always stay outside. Never seen one of them actually go in. Their...

I started a new thread because my old one wasn't really about this issue. I'm stumped. Maybe I just have a misunderstanding about one of these concepts, but I can't seem to figure out what (if anything) is wrong. I'm totally aware the answer might be "nothing." I have 4 hens (EE, Black Star...