My hens had some pretty bad loss of feathers which we had attributed to an overly aggressive rooster. He's been gone 2 months now and their bald patches are getting worse instead of better. There is still one rooster in with them but he seams to have settled down the past few weeks and i rarely see him exhibit any excessive aggression towards the hens.
Before the hens had bare backs. A few also had bare shoulders or bare bottoms. But the bare spots have gotten larger on many of them. Some have such bare bottoms now that you can almost see their vents. One only has a small tuft of feathers left where her tail should be-this one happens to be a mean hen who nails others frequently yet she is missing the most feathers-go figure! Some are losing neck and chest feathers now too.
My rooster in there is also not nearly as nice looking as he used to be. His tail feathers are still iredescent but are kinda ratty looking. His saddle feathers are mostly gone. His lower neck and muff feathers are broken off a lot.
Nobody seams overly itchy like they have mites or lice or something. Nobody is grooming too much. And i'm not noticing any serious aggression or bullying anymore. All aggression seams to have tempered itself in the past few weeks. I am seeing pin feathers are slight sprouts of fluff on their bare spots but that has been the same for the past 6-7 weeks now and the feathers aren't coming in.
One thing i did notice this afternoon is that when they pick at each other they're eating the pieces of feathers. Not sure what that's about. But even with all these bare spots happening i'm not finding a single feather laying anyplace in their run or coop. So they much be eating them all. Why would they do that? Could it be a nutritional problem?
They're all the same age-almost 14 months old. They've all been together their whole lives. At first we thought they were molting but now i'm not too sure and it's been too many years since my last batch of chickens that i cannot remember if this happened during molting with that flock or not?
Before the hens had bare backs. A few also had bare shoulders or bare bottoms. But the bare spots have gotten larger on many of them. Some have such bare bottoms now that you can almost see their vents. One only has a small tuft of feathers left where her tail should be-this one happens to be a mean hen who nails others frequently yet she is missing the most feathers-go figure! Some are losing neck and chest feathers now too.
My rooster in there is also not nearly as nice looking as he used to be. His tail feathers are still iredescent but are kinda ratty looking. His saddle feathers are mostly gone. His lower neck and muff feathers are broken off a lot.
Nobody seams overly itchy like they have mites or lice or something. Nobody is grooming too much. And i'm not noticing any serious aggression or bullying anymore. All aggression seams to have tempered itself in the past few weeks. I am seeing pin feathers are slight sprouts of fluff on their bare spots but that has been the same for the past 6-7 weeks now and the feathers aren't coming in.
One thing i did notice this afternoon is that when they pick at each other they're eating the pieces of feathers. Not sure what that's about. But even with all these bare spots happening i'm not finding a single feather laying anyplace in their run or coop. So they much be eating them all. Why would they do that? Could it be a nutritional problem?
They're all the same age-almost 14 months old. They've all been together their whole lives. At first we thought they were molting but now i'm not too sure and it's been too many years since my last batch of chickens that i cannot remember if this happened during molting with that flock or not?
