Breast feathers loss in my black cochin bantam

[naveed]

Hi,

Two of my black cochin bantam hens have lost their feathers from breast and crop area. Please tell me is there some problem, both are also laying eggs.

 

[Pele]

First of all, you have very adorable girls! Secondly, unless the feather loss spreads, I wouldn't worry about it overly much. Cochins are known for broodiness, and a very distinct broody activity is pulling out breast and belly feathers.

This is done so that their skin will have direct contact with the eggs, and thus maintain the temperature and moisture that the eggs need to incubate.

I'd say you arn't going to be getting eggs out of them much longer, because they'll be too busy sitting flat like a pancake and growling at everything

Of course, a good check for mites couldn't hurt either.

 

[naveed]

Thanks

, yeah this one growls really and they used to sit a lot and started laying eggs after about 10 days gap, now a days i am getting one egg daily since 5 days. And yeah again they will stop for few days.