Feather Pecker/Eater - Help needed please!

[gustishmaggi]

We have 5 hens and 1 cockerel. One of our hens (a speckeldy) just keeps pecking feathers out of the others and eating them. Even if she sees a feather on the ground she will immediately pick it up and eat it. She is pecking her fellow chickens bald.

Can anyone please suggest how we can overcome this problem or do we just have to get rid of her? She appears to have taught this behaviour to one of the others as she pecks back but nowhere near to the same extreme.

 

[Muzzie]

OMG I have a hen that does the same I have her isolated from the others I wasn't able to cure her of the feather eating. The antipick sprays didn't work I even tried seperating her for months all winter in fact and a few weeks ago I let her freerange with the others and all was fine until they started to dustbath she looked at them like they were food and started plucking and eating feathers so now she is back in hencatraz. Sorry I couldn't offer any help hopefully someone will have an answer just wanted you to know your not alone.

 

[gustishmaggi]

Thanks for your support, it's good to know that we are not alone in this senario.

Hopefully somebody can come up with some suggestions to help with our problem!!

 

[TXmom]

My chickens eat feathers all the time...they eat them off the ground, and they occasionally pick a feather from one of the others, but it's not a serious problem for me...I think they just like feathers!

You can try increasing the protein in their diet (scrambled eggs, cat food, bugs, etc). Boredom can cause picking problems too, but if it's basically just one hen doing the picking, then you have to deal with her specifically. I've read that Pinless Peepers work really well. There's a guy on here that had a serious picking problem and he put Peepers on all his girls and they worked perfectly. Basically they are blinders...the hens can't see the chicken in front of them, but can still see food, water and stuff on the ground.