At wits end with veteran feather picker

[azygous]

I forgot all about this thread!

I did buy some bumpa bits through e-Bay. But the ones I was sent, were too long, and Flo couldn't eat at all with it installed. Before one day was over, I had to remove it.

So be aware that there are different shapes and sizes. The one I put on Flo was long and narrow compared to the one pictured in this thread. It extended well beyond her beak.

As for the status of my feather picker Flo, she's worse than ever. I've exhausted all means of trying to solve the problem, including diet, supplements, pinless peepers and bumpa-bit. As of this post, she resides permanently in chicken jail, completely separated from the others. Not only is she still feverishly driven to shaving feathers at all opportunities, she's now picking fights if she gets in with the others.

It's not a happy arrangement as she refuses to lay in a box in the jail, and I have to place her in a coop nest when she wants to lay an egg. Yes, she lets me know when she has to lay. No, I will not cull her. She's still my little Flo and she's precious to me.

 

[jak2002003]

Cant you just build her her own mini run and coop - like on of the triangle chicken tractors.
You could put this in your main run so she won't get lonely as she will be surrounded by the other chickens.

Those things on the beaks look terrible! I can imagine the bird will be annoyed by having something stuck to the its beak - and through its nose!

 

[azygous]

Flo may be in chicken jail, but it's the Club Fed of chickens jails. It's a cubicle in the main pen so Flo has the ability to talk to her flock mates. It's even quite roomy, about 18 square feet with its own perch, a 3' x 6' picture window with a ledge on which she can perch to look out into the pine forest behind the pen. I tried to interest her in her own nest box in her "cell" but she insisted on laying only in a coop nest box. She has me quite well trained. Oh, and she also gets regular outside exercise periods when her cell exterior door is open so she can come and go at her leisure, providing, of course, the rest of the flock isn't free-ranging.

At night, I open the door and she marches around to her solitary half of the rooster coop. She was roosting with the roo, but that ended when I noticed she'd eaten the feathers off half his neck during the night. She now roosts on the other side of a partition. This is also the coop where her favorites nest box is located.

Have you ever heard of such a pampered problem hen before?