chicken with no neck feathers...not molting...pic included

[roz]

! dont know what's wrong with my cochin. A couple of months ago she started to lose neck feathers so I thought she was molting...a couple of my other ones were actually molting. Anyway, her neck is getting worse, and it is clearly not a molt. She looks like she has a tick embedded near the top middle of her neck, but I'm not sure what it is. A farmer friend of mine said it could be a bug or a fungal infection and suggested I try a bleach/water solution for a couple of days, but she didnt know if it would work because she culls chickens that have problems. Anyone else have this problem??? I took this picture before I put the bleach solution on her. She has next to no feathers now.

 

[chicmom]

Do you have a rooster? Sometimes the rooster will pull out the hen's feathers when he is mating with her......

 

[muddyhorse]

she might have mites, very tiny tiny buggys look closely. If she does I would give her a bath in flea shampoo, than provide some seven dust in her dusting area

 

[roz]

I dont have a rooster. I have 10 hens. None of the others seem to have this problem. I have tried looking for mites. I went out at night with a flashlight, and I've run a white papertowel under the roosting bar to see if any blood from full mites might show up on it. Is it possible a tick has done this? That silver thing at the top of her neck looks like an embedded tick up close. I couldnt pull it out. I have also looked at her vent and through feathers periodically to check for mites and there has been nothing. She eats, lays eggs, and is active so far.

 

[dawg53]

If she's at the bottom of the pecking order, she could be getting pecked on by the others. If this is the case, put some Vick's Vap-O-Rub on the back of her neck, the others wont peck on her anymore after getting a taste of that.

 

[KerryM]

I have 8 hens now and mine are doing the same thing...I would be very curious to know why also...I have tried antibiotics in the water for 5 days now and one died two days ago....we seperated the one rooster thinking the girls were getting picked on but just about all of them are loosing the neck and head feathers and some the tail feathers also..I don't know what to do either..

 

[roz]

She is not at the bottom of the pecking order, and while I do see the pecking order, all of the girls are pretty mellow with each other. Something else is wrong...something either bug wise or fungal? I wish I knew.