Chickens Missing Huge Patches of Feathers

[Haida]

Hi everyone! I'm kind of new to chickens (most of my experience is with turkeys and emu lol) but I share a property with my Mother in Law who has a small flock of Rhode Island Reds and Easter Eggers... 20 or so hens. My main concern is that her flock looks SO raggedy... and I'm not sure what's causing it. About half of her hens have HUGE patches of bare skin and cuts or are missing feathers. At first, I thought it was the roosters overbreeding them, but then the fox took the roos, (about a month ago) and the patchiness is getting worse. Some look like they've been henpecked (missing feathers behind the comb) so I'm not sure if they're fighting or if its mites or what. We also noticed that her EE's are mostly affected, her RIR's look great (except for one who's obviously low in rank).

My MIL is a sweet, kind lady (she is partially responsible for getting me addicted to turkeys) and I adore her, but she is... uh... kind of stubborn about this... Tonight, my husband casually mentioned her chickens looking a little rough and she got totally defensive, saying things like, "noooo, they're just fine" and "it's happened once before", "they do this sometimes" and then he mentioned how they might have a deficiency of some sort and she got more upset, "their feed hasn't changed, it isn't anything different!" I don't think this is molting... if it is... then why would it only affect the EE's? I believe they're all the same age (going on 2 or 3).

I also have my own first flock of Barred Rocks who are 15 weeks old (and are fenced in and separated from her chickens) and I am concerned that whatever they have could be contagious.

Her chickens are free range (they typically don't make it all the way back to my chickens), they eat generic layer pellets and crumbles and get cracked corn twice a day. No free access to oyster shell and no wormers in sight. They do get a lot of table scraps, though. Some of the hens are egg eaters, and they eat every part of the egg. Now, my theory is that they have a protein deficiency and might be eating the feathers or something. Her hens are also very flighty, so I wonder if they're stressed and taking it out on each other? Husband says it might be mites/lice or some other parasite.

Here are some rough pictures I got tonight... sorry they're so awful, I can get better ones tomorrow.

The hen on the left seems ok, but obviously the hen on the right has issues...


They were being sooo uncooperative, lol. I was trying to get a picture of the two on the right.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be more than grateful... or if anyone could help me point my MIL in the right direction... lol. Thanks for reading!

 

[abserbean]

Have you seen them pulling feathers? The first hen looks like roo damage, maybe it's just taking a long time to come back in? The second pic looks like it could be feather picking, but also could be roo damage. Usually feather loss on the back is roo. I have a feather puller in my flock, but she pulls butt feather while roosting. Feather pulling is a very tough habit to break. If if is old roo damage, upping their protein could help the feathers come in faster. Have they been treated for mites/lice? Of course, if it was a parasite, you would expect that all of the hens would be affected. I would check them for parasite, and assuming that is clear just up their protein (a little cat food, fish, etc.). Good luck!

 

[iwiw60]

From your pics you sent with your post I have a question....those wire shelves...is that their ROOST area?????

 

[Haida]

From your pics you sent with your post I have a question....those wire shelves...is that their ROOST area?????

YES. I HATE IT!!! My Mother in Law thinks the shelves are the best thing ever, but the chickies have the hardest time hanging on with their feet. And I think its terrible in the winter... not only is the metal cold, but that horrible winter breeze just blows on their tummies... ugh.

Have you seen them pulling feathers? The first hen looks like roo damage, maybe it's just taking a long time to come back in? The second pic looks like it could be feather picking, but also could be roo damage. Usually feather loss on the back is roo. I have a feather puller in my flock, but she pulls butt feather while roosting. Feather pulling is a very tough habit to break. If if is old roo damage, upping their protein could help the feathers come in faster. Have they been treated for mites/lice? Of course, if it was a parasite, you would expect that all of the hens would be affected. I would check them for parasite, and assuming that is clear just up their protein (a little cat food, fish, etc.). Good luck!

I haven't actually seen them pulling the feathers, but I have seen them ganging up on some of the more subordinate hens... That's about it. I thought the feathers would come in faster on their backs because there haven't been any roos present for a while, but the butt and thigh feathers missing thing is new... and no, they haven't been treated for lice/mites or anything. I've been reading on how to check for those buggies, so maybe I'll try to check them out tonight. I hate to see them beat up like this. :C Thanks for your input!

 

[iwiw60]

YES. I HATE IT!!! My Mother in Law thinks the shelves are the best thing ever, but the chickies have the hardest time hanging on with their feet. And I think its terrible in the winter... not only is the metal cold, but that horrible winter breeze just blows on their tummies... ugh.

THAT is absolutely AWFUL!!! I realize this is your MIL we're talking about but quite frankly she has NO clue how to 'keep' chickens. No wonder they are pecking themselves to death!! Those poor things must be so frustrated they're going CRAZY! I can only imagine what their poor feet look like.

Is there any way you can fix that major flaw with her coop and just rip those stupid shelves out and replace with 2 x 4's laying flat? At least they would be more comfortable. The way she has them set up presently I can only say she is literally torturing them. Me personally? That's what I'd do whether she liked it or not...I could never stand by and allow that to continue...sorry for the rant, but it is what it is...good luck and please do let us know if you're able to make any progress!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

If the feather is totally pulled out, the feather should grow back in a month or less. If the feather is broken and part of the shaft remains, it won’t grow back until they molt. Upping the protein won’t affect whether it grows back now or will wait for a molt. Higher protein will help it grow back faster when it decides to grow back.

I don’t know what causes that kind of damage. You see it in flocks with and without a rooster, often in the small of the back or right around the vent area. Some hens have brittle feathers, they just break easily. Those hens will look rough a lot of the time. Mites or lice can cause things like that so definitely check them for that. It could be feather-picking, quite possibly on the roosts. If they free range it is unlikely they will be bored enough during the day to do that. Chickens will often eat loose feathers blowing around, that’s not the same as feather-picking off another chicken. Just watching my dogs shed now that the heat is here makes me think chickens may shed part of their winter coat which could cause them to look ragged.

The thing that concerns me about this is that you said they have cuts. Could you describe those a bit? Where are they and what do they look like?

 

[Haida]

THAT is absolutely AWFUL!!! I realize this is your MIL we're talking about but quite frankly she has NO clue how to 'keep' chickens. No wonder they are pecking themselves to death!! Those poor things must be so frustrated they're going CRAZY! I can only imagine what their poor feet look like.

Is there any way you can fix that major flaw with her coop and just rip those stupid shelves out and replace with 2 x 4's laying flat? At least they would be more comfortable. The way she has them set up presently I can only say she is literally torturing them. Me personally? That's what I'd do whether she liked it or not...I could never stand by and allow that to continue...sorry for the rant, but it is what it is...good luck and please do let us know if you're able to make any progress!!!

I appreciate your honesty!

I knew the roosts were a problem, but not that much!! I let my husband know what you said, and we got to thinking... a reason they might be pecking each other like this is because of the whole fox problem the MIL is having... she lost at least ten birds and three ducks that I know of to the fox before she finally agreed to do anything about it (seriously, I was dying on the inside--how could you wait that long?!?!). Most of these chickies would roost in the open part of the barn, where there used to be rafters on the walls that were perfect roosts. No one would use these shelves inside the coop! Well, the fox would come and simply pick a chicken off of her roost, so the solution we came up with was to remove the rafters on the wall, thus 'forcing' the girls to go into their coop so my MIL could shut the door... So now they have to use the shelves. They did pile up on each other, too...

Friday evening after reading your reply, we talked to the MIL about it. She is kind of a strong woman and can be intimidating at times.

She's hard to talk to. But we said a shortened version of what you said, and along with our theory on it... she actually THANKED us. I was totally blindsided, lol. So Saturday, we began renovating their coop! They have nice new nest boxes (the galvanized steel kind, they have cubby holes, if that makes sense, lol) and we're still working on their actual roosts. The nest boxes have a wooden roosts built in, so they've been using that as well as these temporary wooden roosts we put in. Even her ducks like the nest boxes, lol. Some of them still use the shelves, but are no longer piled up on each other. Hopefully we'll get that wrapped up here in the next few days... I peeked in on them this morning and they seemed so much calmer than they were before. Thank you so much. I was at a loss at what to do or how to deal with my MIL.

If the feather is totally pulled out, the feather should grow back in a month or less. If the feather is broken and part of the shaft remains, it won’t grow back until they molt. Upping the protein won’t affect whether it grows back now or will wait for a molt. Higher protein will help it grow back faster when it decides to grow back.

I don’t know what causes that kind of damage. You see it in flocks with and without a rooster, often in the small of the back or right around the vent area. Some hens have brittle feathers, they just break easily. Those hens will look rough a lot of the time. Mites or lice can cause things like that so definitely check them for that. It could be feather-picking, quite possibly on the roosts. If they free range it is unlikely they will be bored enough during the day to do that. Chickens will often eat loose feathers blowing around, that’s not the same as feather-picking off another chicken. Just watching my dogs shed now that the heat is here makes me think chickens may shed part of their winter coat which could cause them to look ragged.

The thing that concerns me about this is that you said they have cuts. Could you describe those a bit? Where are they and what do they look like?

I was wondering how feather regrowing worked. I'm not sure if they're totally pulled out or not... I mean, if they're broken, they are broken very close to the skin... can chickens get sunburned?! I'll keep looking for lice, but fortunately, I haven't seen any yet! I don't think I want to, they look so icky... meanwhile I'm wondering if I can get my MIL to think about hen saddles/aprons, but I think she'll just laugh at me. I have one on one of my turkey hens and its amazing.

As far as cuts go, it's right above their tails but where it's bald. Only one hen has a cut I'm worried about, but it's already scabbed up and she's still eating and being bossy. It's huge, though, it spans the whole bald spot from left to right and is about 2" wide. The minor cuts just look like little holes on their bald spots, like you would see from being pecked... they're just a little red and inflamed, sometimes bloody/scabby (but a very tiny amount). Does that make sense? I can see if I can get pictures, but oh my gosh, these chickens are so hard to work with.

I use Blu-Kote on my birdies, do you think if I spray their bald spots they'd leave them alone better? I've never used Blu-Kote on such a large area, I'm not sure if it would have an adverse effect or not.

Thank you for your input, too. I really appreciate it.

 

[abserbean]

I use Blue Kote on my chickens where they are bald from feather picking, it seems to help. I've covered their entire bottoms and not noticed any problems. Good job on the renovations, and thanks for caring so much about these birds!