Broken feathers

[Larissa_xoxo3]

Hi there! Im a newbie here but I have been raising chickens for over a year now. The past month I have noticed that some of my girls are loosing feathers, however they appear to be broken off half way up the shaft. I thought it might have been mites or lice so I did a deep cleaning of their coop and actually dusted my girls in DE one a week for 2 weeks now. I physically checked them and I don’t see any bugs or any build up around the base of their feathers. I’m wondering if this may just be a molt? However some of my girls seem completely fine and are not loosing any feathers at all? 2 of girls girls that are badly affect like the picture below have stopped laying as well. I would just like some advice on what this might be and how I can treat them to grow their feathers back! Thanks

 

[Wezdin]

From what I see that is just a normal molt and nothing to be worried about

 

[Larissa_xoxo3]

Awesome thank you so much! I was just a little worried where there were some girls who didn’t seem to be missing any feathers at all that it could have been something more serious!

 

[Perris]

hello @Larissa_xoxo3 ! welcome to BYC
do you have a cockerel mounting the ones with broken feathers?

 

[Larissa_xoxo3]

No, I don’t have any roosters!

 

[Perris]

it's not that then!
Have they got the lavender gene? I see this with my LAs and I read somewhere that lavender colouration is associated with poor feather quality. That fits with my experience; one of my LAs starts looking pretty ragged from not long after growing a whole new set of feathers after molting (but she suffers from a roo's attention too).

 

[Larissa_xoxo3]

I got them from my local feed store so as far as I know they are just RIR and leghorn whites ! I was talking to another farmer around here and he said that his girls are looking the same and also going through a molt, so I'm hoping that's all it is! Thank you again though!