Feather loss

[lmooresmith]

 

[lmooresmith]

 

[lmooresmith]

The previous 3 pictures shows our older hen with significant feather loss and a large mass on her back right tail. Her vent looks great but she does seem to have some diarrhea. We have her in the basement and she is walking around but feathers are falling out while she walks. Still talking- sweet old girl! Is it "time" or some way I can comfort her?

 

[dixielou]

I have a leghorn almost 2 years old and she has had significant feather loss from her below her vent and all her hind downy feathers. I have checked to see mites or any other parasite and nothing. The feather loss has been in place for months and I just kept hoping they would return. All the other hens are looking just fine, no problems at all. I haven't seen any aggression and they are pretty much free range so they are not cooped up in a small area other than at night. A total of 6 only. Added a picture. Any suggestions/solutions? I know she is cold at night and during the day with all this frigid weather here in SD. Thanks

Poor Little Scarlett lives up to her name!

 

[Mandys Hens]

I am hoping someone can answer this question, as I have the same problem too. I have 4 hens remaining, one died this morning. Two of them are missing feathers just in from (on the back) of the tail and around and below the vent. The hen that died today was my bully hen and showed no symptoms of illness (other than feather loss). The deceased hen was missing feathers all around the vent and was starting to lose feathers on her back close to the tail. I have checked for mites/lice and do not see anything. Will check again tomorrow in daytime. I do not know if her death is related to feather loss. Also, I noticed on the deceased hen, her vent looked like she was trying to push something out. It looked swollen, oozy (maybe a ting of blood). I felt around and did not feel any abnormalities, like blockage, but it was very strange looking. It actually looked just like birth (when the head starts to crown). Again, do not know if death had anything to do with feather loss, but wonder if it had something to do with what was going on in the vent. Any ideas???

 

[MichaelB]

Chiming in here. I will have to post a photo later, but it started with my Easter Egger pullets earlier in the year - they lost the saddle feathers at the base of their tail, and it traveled up their back. Then I noticed that my Black Australorps were beginning to exhibit the same feather loss, and one is looking like DixieLou's hen above. I've also noticed that the Red Stars were losing neck feathers like mooresmith's hens, at first I thought there was Naked Neck in their background.

I don't see any crawling little bugs, either. I've used Blue Kote to keep their mates from pecking at them with some success.

MichaelB

 

[spgj1]

Hi, I have 13 month old chickens, 1 of which (and shes the high on the pecking order girl) is loosing feathers on her neck sides, near the top of head about inch below her eyes. The skin is pale smooth, very light pink. She is ner normal self chasing the other girls, they do free range during the day. I don't see any crawlies on them, the other seem fine. I do dust their coop regularly with DE. Its Early June, think they could be moulting already? They did start laying at about 4 months old. Not sure if that matters.

 

[Wol1]

Is there anyone who has had this problem and found out what was going on? I've got one hen in this condition. She's starting to look like a supermarket roaster. (appearance, not that I'm giving up on her and putting her in soup)

 

[Tripp and Nikki]

My chicken is having a similar problem but her's is red and swollen. I found the following post that makes me think she is picking at her preen gland due to salt or some other deficiency. I do think this makes sense because I have recently increased garden scraps, according to the post those should only be 10% of the diet. If scraps exceed that they can get nutritional deficiencies. So I am going to get some vitamins/electrolytes tomorrow and will post the results.

Here is the helpful post I read:

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/03/chicken-feather-loss-cannibalism-causes.html

Good luck!