Chicken losing feather, on and off again sneezing...

[Coppercanyon]

I am realatively new to chicken rearing, so this is my first encounter with something not right with my birds. We first noticed 1 year old hen beginning to lose feathers around her tail, the feathers look broken off and frayed...this has been going on for quite a while, long enough to not be molting. Then it has spread to another 5 hens, all in various stages of looking very rough. We did have a period of sneezing, which has subsided. The hen that was sneezing is not effected with this feather condition. I have inspected them closely, and see no signs of mites or lice, and the skins appears pale (normal??). Does anyone have any idea what is troubling these poor birds?

 

[spish]

could you have a bully in your flock whos feather picking the others?

 

[Coppercanyon]

I don't think so... I don't know how to explain it...it starts out by looking like the feathers are choppy, and frayed, starts by the tail, and then gets to the point where all I see is the down underlayer, still intact and not harmed at all. There is no bleeding and no bruising of the skin. I will have to pay more attention to the bullying issue, who knows...that could be it I suppose.