chicken eating feathers

[sophiah]

please help me! i have a golden laced wyandotte that keeps biting pieces off of my other chickens' feathers. i just recently changed their feed so its 18% protein. i also apply rooster booster peck no more. but i just do not know what to do bc she wont stop pecking the feathers

 

[azygous]

Two things you can try. One is pinless peepers. They fit on the beak and are held in place by prongs that stick into the beak holes. They inhibit forward vision and in many instances, they will stop the picking behavior.

Some hard cases seem intent on working around the sight inhibition and pick in spite of the peepers. If that turns out to be the case, or you don't wish to use the pinless peepers, there's another way.

I started this thread to document an experiment I'm conducting on my flock. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/feather-picking-and-a-possible-way-to-control-it.1495721/ I have some serious feather pickers and have been looking for a way to curb the behavior for almost as long as I've been keeping chickens. I'm mixing small amounts of L-tryptophan into their food each afternoon.

Early results seem promising. My worst picker today ignored the butt feathers of a hen I had just washed. Normally, damp butt feathers would be in invitation for this hen to pluck, but she did nothing more than to look at the damp butt as if she were thinking, "I know I used to find damp butt feathers especially inviting, but for some reason, they just don't do it for me anymore."

The thread has way more information in case you're interested.