feather eating addiction - but not skin picking - how to stop?

[Aunt Mildred]

We have four hens in an 8x12 closed chicken run. All four of them have lived together for about a year with no problems. In January, we had a blizzard that kept the hens "cooped" up for a couple of days. My husband was out of town and I"m pregnant and couldn't shovel out the snow. Even though I continued to feed and water them inside of their coop house, I think they got a little bored and started picking on each other's feathers a bit. Blue Baby and White Baby are both Americauna mixes, Aunt Dooney is a Cookoo Maran, and Aunt Inez is some mutt that looks like a lot like a black langshire. The two Americaunas are a year younger, and a little smaller, and Blue Baby looked like she was getting picked on the most with a lot of her back feathers towards the tail missing. But all of them had their fluffy butt feathers picked on. Since then, they've had some time to free range in the back yard to get some more space from each other, and we've increased their protein with calf manna, mealworms, and scrambled eggs. Even though it's been a couple of months, their feathers still haven't grown back in well because White Baby - the other Americauna will not stop pulling them out to eat them. They're back in the run because we put in our garden and they are HUGE pothole diggers, but I don't know if we need to isolate the instigator or not. The others seem to have stopped picking with the protein boost, but White Baby seems to have an addiction and will just follow the girls around, wait for them to put their rumps in the air, and then she goes in for the steal! The strange thing is that we haven't noticed any skin picking - there are no scabs or bloody spots - just plucked butts. We have bluekote but are a little worried to spray across their vents, not to mention that since they're healthy, they're hard to catch. Do you think that would be our best bet though? Also, the pen in large enough to section of White Baby by herself, and she would still have a small covered nestbox on her side. But the one time we tried that, she freaked out to not be with the rest of the girls. Any suggestions? Like I said, I don't think it's a life or death matter right now, but we just want to break the habit before it turns into something worse, and don't know what to do! Help!

 

[Erica]

How annoying for the poor picked ones!

There are a few reasons to fix this, not least being that feathers in the digestive system can cause blockages.

I wonder if this is a case for a nose clip? A nose clip is a C shaped metal clip that fits in each nostril with the curved section going through the bird's mouth. The clip stops the beak from closing properly, and therefore makes it impossible for the bird wearing it to pick feathers out.

The clip doesn't last forever and can wear a groove in the mouth, so has to be taken out at some point. But it does stop picking, doesn't harm the wearer (as long as food is given ad lib) and may just break the habit entirely.

I'm not sure where to find them but if you google 'nose clip' and 'feather picking' you should get somewhere...

Best of luck!

Erica

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

This is so FRUSTRATING. I've been dealing with the same issue for several months. It stopped once when I did the following:

fed 22% layer feed that contained animal protein
used Blu-Kote on the bare spots
added perches, old logs, and a dust bath to the run
made a net covered area outside of the run for extra space and pasture exposure
fed a little BOSS once a day as a treat when I called the chickens

Then, I had a hen develop what turned out to be a gizzard issue and I stopped feeding the BOSS and went back to 16% layer feed at the suggestion of others with more experience than I have. The picking started again about a month later.

So, I switched back to 22% layer feed with animal protein. After a month, the picking still continued. The feathers were being eaten. A week ago I realized that maybe the BOSS had made a difference so I started giving them 1/8 of a cup in the afternoons as a treat. (I have 5, year old hens). The day I started the BOSS was the last day of picking. Maybe this isn't why they stopped but they have stopped and I'm thrilled. I have my fingers crossed it won't start again.

 

[Rdoyle77]

I am having the same problem. I have one hen that is 2 months other then the other 3 and she is picking on the other three. They have plenty of room but are in a run. I feed them feather fixer but it doenst seem ti be helping. What is BOSS?