Bare belly on one of my hens

[jettgirl24]

Hi All,

I was walking around holding my BR the other day and when i scratched her belly I noticed that she has lost most of the feathers on her belly. I didn't notice it before because feathers on either side cover it, but when you part them there is a bare spot about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide down the center of her belly. The skin isn't irritated at all, just bare and I don't see any feathers laying around anywhere either. She's not molting and not showing any signs of going broody... She doesn't even lay any eggs to go broody over! Shoot, I wish she would go broody and sit on somebody else's eggs to make herself useful for something

Any ideas as to why she might have lost her belly feathers?

 

[Pharm Girl]

Mine lost her belly feathers when she got lice. Don't know if she picked them out or what, but we fought the battle and hopefully won. She still has a bare belly though. Might be nice for summer?

 

[PetRock]

We noticed a couple months ago that our Golden Sex link Omelet had a bare belly. We saw no signs of lice or mites and she showed no signs of broodiness. But 2 weeks later, our top BA hen Precious (Omelet's brooder mate) turned broody complete with bare belly. She just wouldn't give up on being a mama so 2 1/2 weeks later, we slipped 3 Speckled Sussex chicks under her. She accepted them and is doing an excellent job raising them. She keeps all the other hens away from the chicks except for Omelet. Precious even allows Omelet to take food away from the babies. She's like a fourth chick! It is too funny! I wonder if Omelet would have helped Precious sit on eggs if we had chosen to go that route?!

 

[featherz]

My hen had a bare belly and turned broody the next week.

 

[PetRock]

I wondered if my Golden Sex link was bordering on broodiness but just didn't have enough hormones to make it there. Our BA, on the other hand, took one look at our brooder chicks who were out in a pen for some fun in the sun and the next day went broody! Her chicks are now 3 weeks old and she has begun to leave them on their own for short periods of time. I just hope she doesn't go broody again this year! She was impossible to break.

 

[jettgirl24]

Very interesting, so far I've seen absolutely no signs of broodiness. No signs of lice or mites on her or any of the others either. Perhaps it's just another odd thing about her that I've never noticed before

This little chicken is a bit "special" but she's my favorite. When she was a baby she used to get excited and just spin in circles

LOL! She's almost a year and a half old and I don't think she's laid a single egg... Ironic since her name is Eggie. If she has laid anything she has been sneaky and only lays on the days that my other BR doesn't. I have never gotten 2/2 BR eggs and I've only ever seen my other BR in the nest box. Funny thing too - the rooster totally ignores her. He is VERY protective of the girls and gets upset when I pick them up except when it's Eggie, then he could care less. I've also never ever seen him try to breed with her and unlike the other girls, she has no missing or roughed up feathers where he's tried to jump on her. When I let them out to free range the others run off to the compost pile but she follows me around and begs to be held or sits in my lap. If I'm not in the yard with them she just kind of pokes around and dust bathes by herself. The other chickens don't pick on her so it's not in a sad or lonely way though, just kind of an oblivious, content to be by herself way. In any case, I'll keep an eye on her for the next few weeks and see what happens. For now I won't really worry about it though.

 

[Sire12]

Can I just bump this, 2 out of my 7 have had this for almost a year I figured if it were mites it would have passed on to the others long ago, they also have a dust bath with wood ashes and DE that they use 3-4 times a week

Also the pair in question when they first arrived were terrible with scaly leg mites it was really quite bad I have to spray them quarterly now just to keep them away they seem to keep coming back, is it possible that it could be those? Maybe because when their feet are tucked up underneath them the mites infested their belly feathers, or their rough legs scratched at their under belly taking the feathers off?