Feather loss

[Major Buff Orpington]

One of my Maran hens has lost a few feathers from her neck and is now impersonating a vulture! Anyone know what could be causing it? Thanks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One very common thing this time of year is molting. These articles give pictures of molting, talk about where it starts and finishes, and gives you some hints so you might be able to tell if it will last a couple of months or 5 or 6 months with your chickens. It is always possible it is something else, like feather picking, but my money is on molting.

Mississippi State describes molting
http://msucares.com/poultry/management/poultry_feathers.html

Kansas State feather loss
http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/mf2308.pdf

 

[austradork]

Oh gosh. One of my Australorps had that problem a while ago and it didn't turn out well. You can see pics here. I also posted here and here . As you can see in the links, the problem started with Harriet losing feather around her head and neck, but it quickly progressed to include severe swelling. I'm not trying to scare you or anything (the necropsy vet said she'd never seen anything like that before!). If your chicken starts to look like my poor Harriet, let me know. It turned out to be a severe bacterial infection that wasn't identified in time (the other vets were mystified too) and we had to put her down.