bare underbellies due to broodiness? how to stop?

[cahotchick]

Hi all - we are the SF Bay Area of CA and have 3 hens, ~10 months old. 2 of them, a Barred Rock and a Lavender Orpington have bare bottoms beneath the vent. They are otherwise eating, drinking & behaving fine. Also laying fine with ~5-6 eggs per week each. No visible parasites or mites. They have a good sized coop, run and they also get out to roam the back yard 2 x per day for a few hours where they love to find a sunny spot in the dirt and bathe as well as peck around the grass. No visible feather plucking and they all get along great (we honestly can't figure out if there is a pecking order as there is no visible behaviors to indicate!) I have heard that oftentimes they will pluck the underneath feathers for better egg contact when broody. While we try to remove the eggs as quickly as possible so they can't sit on them, sometimes the eggs may be in there for 8 hours or so before retrieval. Assuming their bare bottoms are due to broodiness, 1. how long does this last? 2. what else can we be doing to help get this to stop? 3. Anything else I should be looking out for? Thanks!

 

[Judy]

It is natural broody behavior to pluck their own under feathers, and not likely to stop unless you break the broodiness. While it is possible that the presence of eggs may encourage broodiness, the fact is they will go broody without any eggs present, and even sit for weeks on an empty nest. Broodiness is controlled by hormones.

I'm wondering if this is due to broodiness, though, because you say it's just below the vent. Where they pluck is the lowest prtion, that is normally in contact with eggs while setting. I wonder if the cause of the plucking is gone and the feathers have not returned because they won't until they molt.

 

[centrarchid]

My hens do not pluck feathers from their nest for placing in the nest. They collect whatever fibrous materials they can by bill within their neck's reach while sitting on the nest. Sometimes that will contain feathers. Evidence for this can come from the fact the feathers do not always belong to the hen using the nest. Additionally, when they are stressed by sustained laying, they are prone to drop feathers and not just from the under belly. This can be compensated for by increasing the protein content of the diet. Even without loss of feathers, the hen can still exhibit a brood patch. The skin there is capable of becoming extremely stretchy in a manner that exposes a thin and highly vascularized area well suited for transferring heat to developing embryos. The patch normally becomes apparent when the hen becomes broody and the patch tightens up each time the hen comes of the nest to control heat loss.

 

[cahotchick]

Thank you Judy!