My hens will be 1 years old at the end of May. They have been laying since Nov. Recently I went out of town and came back to a few of them ripping off and eating her coop mates feathers. She seems to have stopped since Iv'e been home and caring for them better (bad caretaker while I was gone). I have noticed a few of them have lost feathers on their butts and some look bald when I pull back the fluff and take a closer look. I also see new fearther quills coming in around those areas. Could they be starting to molt? They did not have a real molt back in the fall. I also have seen feathers dropped in the nest box. I have been keeping a close eye since I got home and all seemed to be happy and active so what do you think it is. While I was gone I realized that the caretakers were feeding them scratch instead of feed and also ignored my instructions to shut them up at dark, instead they rangled them in at their convient time and left them until they got around to letting them out the next morning, I was so ******, one was so droopy I for sure thought she was dying but a few days of propper food and fresh water they all were back to normal. Could this be from stress?
