Bare spots and red butts

[Cheeseburger Bandit]

I have 3 hens who are the victims of bullies! They have bald spots, red bare butts, and I can’t seem to figure out how to help them. I’ve tried to cure their boredom, separate them from the bullies, covered their bald spots with blue cote, and offered a dust bath and checked for mites.

In addition to the pecking, I’m worried one has another issue. Her butt is huge, and red. I’m pretty sure she’s still laying but she looks lame. Her stance is very wide and she kicks her legs back often (like something is stuck to her foot). I’ve inspected her legs and didn’t find anything unusual.

Any suggestions??

 

[Acre4Me]

Not sure about the enlarged bottom. But bare backs may also be the chickens eating feathers. Feathers are protein, so if they are protein deficient sometimes they resort to feather picking to eat them. Do you see them picking feathers, followed by eating them? Watch closely bc they pick and eat a feather really fast. My neighbors chickens used to do this and I had to focus on only one chicken in order to catch them eating feathers.

You could buy higher protein feed, such as an all flock type. These are usually 20% protein. Or, you could bump up protein in other ways but chicken/poultry feed is the best long term solution bc it is formulated for chickens. To bump their feed in protein, you could give them meat-chopped up small, but watch the salt -No or low salt (sorry ham, that’s a no-go), so boil some chicken or beef and chop it up-although they could probably manage to tear into it it just that they will run off with it, etc. you can use DRY cat food-moirsten it (but only as a supplement), you can cook and feed them their eggs, you can use dry fish food (like for a home aquarium), you can use catfish pond pellets. But, long term, buy higher protein chicken feed.

 

[dawg53]

In addition what Acre4Me stated, it's likely that urates in feces have scalded their rear end and bottoms causing redness, swelling and irritation. Apply Nu-Stock to the affected areas as needed and it will heal in time. If there's feather picking going on, once the picker gets a mouthful of the Nu-Stock, feather picking will stop.
Wear disposable gloves when applying the Nu-Stock. It can be found in a feed store in the Equine section. Shake the tube well.

 

[happyhencamper]

I have been searching these threads because I have fairly new hens (2) both same breed. That have the bald bottom. They both had runny, poopy feathers back there. The liquid runny stool seems to have corrected itself. That is another story that I am not sure what to do about. Because of the diarrhea, it would make sense that it could be irritation. I am going to try your suggestion here. For nu stock. They are picked on pretty much too, so it sounds like this would solve that problem as well, if it’s not the irritation.