Feather loss & egg bound?

[comb_over]

Been a member for a while. Mostly just read what ya'll post and try and keep my chicks healthy and happy. Located in North GA mountains with plenty of good weather and water. Got 7 hens & 1 rooster named sweetie pie. Nice big coop with hardwood mulch floor and plenty of space for everyone.
Sweetie Pie has been a little rougher than usual on the girls lately and they are loosing back feathers so.. I put him in his own "man cave" and treated the girls with blu kote. I suspect they are also pecking, 3 have lost most of their back feathers. 2 of my 7 hens are acting like they are egg bound. Read about all of the symptoms so I added sticking my lubed finger up a chickens butt to my resume but that wasn't at all the problem. NO egg in there. 1 of the suspected egg bound girls is feeling a lot better, i'm hoping the others do as well. My girls were a week old when I got them they are a year old now and for some reason are starting to develop health problems. After all my research they seem egg bound and maybe a major pecking problem. I used blu kote as a last resort along with removing my rooster from the flock. Any suggestions??

Pure Bred Rhode Island Reds
Coop is clean
16% layer feed with occasional treats
Plenty of cool clean water
Supervised free ranging

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Lots of roosters cause halfbacks on the hens. When I'm trying to figure out who's laying I usually can tell by how bald her back is. It is called being rooster's favorite. I would put the rooster back in and if you're worried about you're hens you can buy them a chicken saddle to protect them from the rooster.

 

[comb_over]

My wife made them saddles/aprons from patterns found on BYC and Pinterest but no luck. They hate them.

 

[4 ever Orpington]

Been a member for a while. Mostly just read what ya'll post and try and keep my chicks healthy and happy. Located in North GA mountains with plenty of good weather and water. Got 7 hens... comb over, hop along, little feather...etc. 1 meanass rooster that goes by the name Sweetie Pie. Nice big coop with hardwood mulch floor and plenty of space for everyone.
Sweetie Pie has been a little rougher than usual on the girls lately and they are loosing back feathers so.. I put him in his own "man cave" and treated the girls with blu kote. I suspect they were also pecking too as "little feather" was his favorite and the other girls don't like her much so her and 3 others in pretty rough shape. Now everyone is pouting and 2 of my 7 hens are acting like they are egg bound. Read about all of the symptoms so I added sticking my lubed finger up a chickens butt to my resume but that wasn't at all the problem. NO egg in there. 1 of the 3 suspected egg bound girls is feeling a lot better, i'm hoping the others do as well. My girls were a week old when I got them they are a year old now and for some reason are starting to develop health problems. After all my research they seem egg bound and maybe a major pecking problem. I used blu kote as a last resort along with removing my rooster from the flock. Any suggestions??

Pure Bred Rhode Island Reds
Every hen lays 1 egg per day
Coop is clean
16% layer feed with occasional treats
Plenty of cool clean water
Supervised free ranging

Where in North Ga. I live in Suches.

 

[Chullicken]

Have a few questions to your questions. 1) how big is your run/coop combination if you use a run? 2) It's possible you have some genetically 'bad' hens from the same breeder, but for that many to get potentially egg bound raises some questions as in what type of feed are they on and daily diet? Blu-Kote is a blessing to the chicken world, never consider it a last resort. That stuff eliminates a lot of future issues and is a wonderful deterrent for bad or potentially bad behavior. Your rooster issue is very common. You said you had or have him in a man cave, does that coop and enclosure run along the existing one so they can have the social contact without it being physical? I have one I keep separated for various reasons and using that method she gets the interaction without the hassles and everyone seems pretty happy.

 

[Chullicken]

Where in North Ga. I live in Suches.

With his giant, meaty rooster!

 

[comb_over]

Fort Mountain

 

[comb_over]

12' x 12' coop with 12' x 10' run 8 nesting boxes and supervised free range daily. Getting plenty of eggs. 16% Layer feed hanging in feeders all around, bananas, broccoli and high protein yogurt as treats for the girls. Man cave is only at night because we lost 3 to bobcats in the fall. He's always separated from the girls during the day. But they have a fence between them at night.

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi Gregory and welcome to BYC

 

[007Sean]

Howdy Gregory Happy to have you join the family. Enjoy your time here at BYC!