Same thing is happening with one of my black sex-link hens. She hasn't started laying yet, and she had the most fluffy and beautiful tail feathers of the 4 that we got a few months back. Shortly after adding 2 leghorn hens to our flock, Crowbar's tail basically disappeared. I figured that the new white ones were establishing themselves as the top birds in the flock and since Crowbar was the dominant one before they arrived, they must have pecked her tail feathers or something. It's been a few weeks and her tail still looks pretty pathetic. I'm new to chickens, so I'm not sure if her feathers were pulled, or if her trail is drooping. We just lost one of the original black sex-link chickens this week, and I'm worried that whatever caused her death might be affecting Crowbar too. However, Crowbar is acting totally normal, eating, running around, hanging out with the other chickens, etc. The one we lost was deffinatly not acting normal (wouldn't leave the nest box to eat or drink). We examined Crowbar and she seems fine. Again, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking for. The only thing that seems notable is that the shaft of her feathers (the white tube that the feather comes out of) seems a bit flaky. We had some trouble catching one of the other chickens to compare (I'm 7 months pregnant, so not quite as nimble as I used to be) so I'm not sure what the feathers' shafts should look like. Here's a pic of Crowbar now:
I'll find a pic of her before her tail went all droopy and send it along in a bit.
Any help/suggestions? I'm really not sure what might be going on.
Also interested in the answer, I have a 10 week old Wyandotte pullet that has this as well. I've had her since she was 6 weeks old and she had it when I got her. All hatch mates have normal tails except for her.
She is the silver laced one.
