bare-backed chickens not molting / how to get their feathers back?

[jo and sal]

hi,

newbies here, wow, what a great website & forum.
we've had chickens (four of them) for about eight months now, they're great, so friendly, lots of eggs. they're former battery hens (red shaver), so would've been about 15 months old when we got them. they live in an enclosure about 5 x 5 meters big with a coop at the end, under some tall macrocarpa trees. I try to let them out for half an hour or so before dinner every other day, any more than that and they try to get beyond our garden boundaries and attack the neighbours' gardens. they're quite vocal at us because they have our front door in full view, and I'm sure they'd love to get out more - but that's just how it is, at least until we fortify our boundaries a bit more.

that just as a background; the reason i'm turning to this forum for your help is that about three months ago, some of them started losing their rear feathers (or 'butt fluff' as someone here called rather aptly!). one of them, quite an adventurous one, also has her feathers looking quite chaotic; another one, who i think might be the boss, hasn't lost any feathers. we weren't sure what to do and hoped it would sort itself out, but no luck. then, reading up a little, we decided it was probably mites, and following some forum advice rubbed their bodies in wood ash from the fireplace. this made no difference. then, examining their coop and them a bit more, there was actually no sign of mites, so i'm now thinking they might be pecking at each other - i've seen it once, so not exactly much proof, but i think it's the most likely cause. after reading some more advice, i almost bought some pine tar to put on them, but then also read that this gets very very messy and is quite hard to get off again. the latest i read, and which i do want to try out, is to apply some blue food coloring to their bare butts (with some vaseline), and this should deter any further pecking as the non-red flesh looks too unappealing (apparently).

so that's the plan (please let me know if you think i'm on the wrong track!), but here in new zealand it's almost the end of autumn, and i've been waiting for them to molt. i'm waiting because i thought that applying the blue coloring might interfere with their natural feather plucking process. (any advice on that appreciated too!) so now it's the end of autumn, and i thought they would've molted by now, but no, they just continue to be 2/3-feathered (except for boss chicken). so i'm thinking it's abut time this changed, but how?

if anyone's had had any similar experiences, i'd love to hear from you!
many many thanks,
jo

 

[Judy]

Maybe it's just not be time for them to molt yet. The root cause of feather picking/eating is usually considered to be either too little space or too little protein, or a combination. The blue is often used to prevent their pecking an open wound, but I don't know that it will do much to stop feather picking -- which can be a tough habit to stop. I would try to get some more protein, preferably animal or mostly animal sourced. If you happen to have access to chicken feed with some fish meal in it, that might be ideal. Mealworms as a supplement might be a relativel inexpensive solution. Of course, any meat scraps are good. I'll give you a couple oflinks about feather picking.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/back-to-basic-living-feather-picking-plucking-and-cannibalism

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/697052/i-think-i-found-a-miracle-cure-for-feather-picking/0_20

 

[Mountain Peeps]

I put a saddle on my hen. The feathers grow back within a month!

 

[jo and sal]

Thanks for the reply Judy!
I thought the feed had enough protein in it (16%, but entirely vegetarian) (http://www.takaninifeeds.co.nz/products/poultry/chook-chow - they love it! Probably because of the molasses), but will try adding some extra meat. Mealworms, yikes! Might start out with small portions of jelly meat!
Great links too, one of them also talks about blue kote, so I'm still thinking to try that too.

When you say it might not be time for them to molt yet - do you mean in their lives or this year? Also (unending newbie questions, sorry!), when we do get them to stop pecking, do the feathers grow back soon or only after the next annual molt?

Many thanks,
Jo

 

[jo and sal]

Hi Judy,

Thanks for the reply! I just wrote back but my reply went off to moderation (I'd included an external link), if it doesn't appear in the next day I'll reply again.
Thanks for the advice!

Jo

 

[jo and sal]

Wow, a saddle! Thanks for the advice, the inventiveness out there is simply amazing! In our case it's mostly the butts that are bare, and in one case the nether regions around the legs. So we'd have to make some weird contraptions, but I'm sure it could be done.
After reading some of Judy's links, I'm also starting to think about whether the one hen without missing feathers might be the culprit and if we should focus on deterring her...

Many thanks!
Jo

 

[jo and sal]

OK,

so a few months on, and we're still not quite there yet with the feather pecking problem. After some overdue molting, most of the butt fluff has returned, which is reassuring. The only pecking problem remaining is one chicken that has a very bare neck. I'd bought an anti-pecking spray containing pine tar and a lot more (really smelling very repulsive) and applied it liberally, but within an hour I saw the hen's neck getting pecked at (despite the taste!). I then mixed some blue food color into the spray solution, but that didn't make any difference either - now we have a hen with a largely bare and blue neck with funny blueish feathers around it.

we haven't tried increasing the protein in their diet yet, as we're vegetarian and don't want to go down the red meat route; the mealworm suggestion was great, but to be honest, we're not that keen on a bucket of wriggling worms! so now i'm thinking maybe fish - like surimi (fish flakes disguised as crab meat)? that seems vaguely cheap enough. hopefully won't spoil the taste of the eggs, if anyone's had bad experiences in this regard i'd love to hear about it!

but barring the success of that, i've had another idea too - how about putting a bandage / tube dressing around this hen's neck for a while so it can recover? would that be hygienic, and how long would we want to leave it on for?

many thanks in advance again for any advice!
jo