Bare Butted 13wk Hen

[Soccerchick240]

New chicken owner here with a 13 week easter egger hen with a bare spot on her distal back above her tail for about 1 week. Acting normal other than messing with the bare spot occasionally. The other 7 pullets are normal, and we don’t have any roosters (that I know of), but do have a dominant hen. They were all raised together from 3 days old. There have been small amounts of fresh and dried blood over the last week. Eating chick starter mix, just added a dust bath this week and just added free choice calcium today, in case those things help. Hoping to treat her at home myself, I tried a lanolin based ointment called “Hen Healer.” She and others seem to pick at it more when I use the ointment though due to the bright blue color (this seems counter productive). No sign of mites or lice that I’ve seen, and they’re in pine shaving bedding. No sign of bullying other than when I use that darn ointment or if there’s visible blood, then the interest grows... And finally, I assume she’s too young to molt, but may be wrong?

How much should I worry about this? Leave it alone? Try a different ointment? Look more for bugs? Thanks for any advice!

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Hi! She's beautiful! I went through this exact thing a while back and my birds just didn't have enough space. I don't know if this is what's going on with your flock, but how much space does your flock have? I've heard that blukote attracted pecking in @aart flock too. I used a similar product called "Peck No More" with success, but haven't tried the other products. The peck no more has a bit of a scent to it and I'm not sure if that helped or not. It's not a strong smell but I wonder if that made any difference.
@aart is very knowledgeable and will have some great advice for you