Constantly breaking blood feathers.. at my wits end. Appreciate any advice!

[CedarAcres]

You showed a picture of his quills and it was not pinched off at the end..
If you have access to NuStock try soaking his feet in NuStock and vet wrapping them. It will be hard to do, but see if you can. That might help until his levels are better and his old feathers are replaced.

You're right!

I just realized I read the article wrong. I have found some feathers that have looked like that, but those were ones that fell out after they were damaged, so I don't think that counts. I recently just bought some nustock, so I might give that a try. Thankfully he's very good about being handled. He'll look pretty snazzy with some purple vetwrap on his feet.. funny thing is his name is Slippers.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Awww I hope Slippers gets better soon!

 

[delisha]

Quote: appropriately named..he has nice feathered feet..I hope you get this under control.

 

[Imachicklvr2]

I am a chicken newbie but I know that in humans, dogs and rabbits it takes a minimum of two weeks for nutritional supplements/feed changes to show some improvement and six weeks or longer to see the full effect. I would think that it would be similar in chickens.

 

[Chickery Chick]

This may be a stretch, but had you in the recent past, say even up to 2 months ago, treated him with Panicur or Safeguard(Fenbendenzole)?
".........Another drug, fenbendazole (Panacur) may work well to clear many birds, however, it can cause feather deformities.........."
http://www.holisticbirds.com/pages/giardia0504.htm

 

[CedarAcres]

appropriately named..he has nice feathered feet..I hope you get this under control.

Thank you! Even as a chick he had such amazing foot feathering.

This may be a stretch, but had you in the recent past, say even up to 2 months ago, treated him with Panicur or Safeguard(Fenbendenzole)?
".........Another drug, fenbendazole (Panacur) may work well to clear many birds, however, it can cause feather deformities.........."
http://www.holisticbirds.com/pages/giardia0504.htm

No, I haven't. But thank you so much for the information!

I am a chicken newbie but I know that in humans, dogs and rabbits it takes a minimum of two weeks for nutritional supplements/feed changes to show some improvement and six weeks or longer to see the full effect. I would think that it would be similar in chickens.

Thanks for this info! He's had the feed changes for about a week and I half I think? And he's had vitamins a few days both weeks, so he may just need more time. It's seemed like he's had improvement (minus yesterdays scary incident) so maybe he needs a bit longer.

 

[CedarAcres]

I have some photos..

His normal foot feathering.. with his dirty little feet!



Here is a comparison of his feet from the last photo of them I posted. Top is last week, bottom is now.



This is the foot that had one break yesterday. The dried blood on his toe is not where it was... it just all dripped there as I was holding him. The one that broke was actually on the next toe over, somewhere in that group of feathers. I haven't been able to even find it, since it broke so close to the skin, surrounded so much by other feathers.

One of the thoughts I've been having is that maybe since so many of the feathers broke and I trimmed some to get a better look at the problem, are the new ones more vulnerable sticking out like that?


And here is the broken feather from yesterday, along with one of his normal foot feathers. I just happened to find it buried in the sand underneath a waterer, which is why it is so ragged looking.

 

[CedarAcres]

Figured I'd give an update.. I've been sick & I hurt my back this week so I haven't been able to give Slippers the attention that I wanted to. But as I suspected, all of the feathers that had previously started growing in before the food change & vitamins, fell out. They did not break, but they fell out. Some of them have "stress lines" in them, and looking into that further, I found that stress lines indicate there was something that disrupted the flow of nutrients to the feather follicle as the feather was growing. I noticed the lines earlier on, and I did notice that it looked different. It wasn't until I did some more research that I recognized what they were. But I have also read that if the feather sheath remains on the feather too long it can also cause marks that appear to be stress lines, but are simply caused by the feather sheath being there too long. Feather quality issues is not something that I know a lot about, so this has been a real learning experience. I've always been happy with the feather quality of our chickens, but he is also our first Sultan. Much heavier foot feathers than our brahmas. He's currently in the house in one of our isolation areas. He has a pretty big area and is on a few inches of soft wood shavings.

The good news: He has had a few feathers grow totally in on his feet, with no issues. He has quite a few new feathers growing in, so I'm very interested to see if they will continue to grow in successfully or if they will fall out. If they fall out, then maybe I need to look into other causes other than the nutrition issue.

 

[delisha]

Figured I'd give an update.. I've been sick & I hurt my back this week so I haven't been able to give Slippers the attention that I wanted to. But as I suspected, all of the feathers that had previously started growing in before the food change & vitamins, fell out. They did not break, but they fell out. Some of them have "stress lines" in them, and looking into that further, I found that stress lines indicate there was something that disrupted the flow of nutrients to the feather follicle as the feather was growing. I noticed the lines earlier on, and I did notice that it looked different. It wasn't until I did some more research that I recognized what they were. But I have also read that if the feather sheath remains on the feather too long it can also cause marks that appear to be stress lines, but are simply caused by the feather sheath being there too long. Feather quality issues is not something that I know a lot about, so this has been a real learning experience. I've always been happy with the feather quality of our chickens, but he is also our first Sultan. Much heavier foot feathers than our brahmas. He's currently in the house in one of our isolation areas. He has a pretty big area and is on a few inches of soft wood shavings.

The good news: He has had a few feathers grow totally in on his feet, with no issues. He has quite a few new feathers growing in, so I'm very interested to see if they will continue to grow in successfully or if they will fall out. If they fall out, then maybe I need to look into other causes other than the nutrition issue.

Thank you for the update.