Feather loss in 2 month olds

[ebrant10]

I'm having some issues in my flock of 8 week olds. Over half of 250 look like this, I just dusted the birds for mites with Sevin dust but I didn't see any bugs at all on them and I looked close. Anyone have any ideas on what it could be or if they'll come out of it?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Tell us about their feed. What is it?

 

[ebrant10]

It's an 18% grower

 

[ChickenCanoe]

And that's all they're getting - as in no scratch grains?

If you've closely examined them and find no lice or mites, I would bump up the protein for a while. 8 week is still pretty young and I like to give birds up to that age 20% protein.
I start with a 16% grower and mix in 60% fishmeal at a 10:1 ratio.
It looks like the kind of damage birds do when they are craving animal protein.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

250 birds is a lot of birds but if you can separate them, perhaps try several cans of mackerel with one group to see if it makes a difference.

 

[ebrant10]

Nothing else. I've used this feed on a flock of 300 birds for the last 4 years with no trouble. The feathers all came in at around 5-6 weeks and was growing fine but it's like In the last week they've all been stripped. No scratches or peck marks like its other birds

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I get that. It's just that I once dropped protein in 8-9 week olds from 20% to 16% and I started getting cannibalism which started with feathers in front of the tail being stripped. I raise the protein and it stopped.

 

[ebrant10]

That makes sense for sure! All these have been debeaked so heavy pecking dosent happen. Im almost positive it's parasitic but I'm just not sure what. I would have been perfectly fine with it if I could see bugs or something but there's no sign of anything. Its Really frustrating, thanks so much for the input though!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Have you considered feather mites? They live inside the feather shaft and are hard to eradicate.

 

[ebrant10]

Something along those lines is what I'm thinking just wondered if others had this problem and what they did to resolve it.