Crazy Birds
Chirping
- Mar 22, 2022
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Recently, my Pekin hen has lost her feathers on a big patch of her chest and her tail feathers have gone mostly missing. She's been coming in for baths, and I have not seen a drop of blood anywhere on her or in the coop; I clean daily. She's almost a year old (Will be in April!) and is bunking with two 6-month-old ducklings. There was a farm accident where she got in-between an alpaca and food and ended up breaking a joint in her leg; I'm not sure if this is why but it seems to be an important tidbit of information. She now gets around with a slight limp, but that's about it. After seeing she was missing her feathers, I paid attention to how she was interacting with the littles, and it appears that the khaki campbell she bunks may have been doing it. When watching, the khaki would push her bill into the pekin's feathers and push the pekin out of the way. The Khaki was just kind of pushing her bill into the pekin's side; it's the same motion as when she tucks her head into her feathers. Although, the khaki has always been quick to push others around, and even goes so far to bite/chase away the chickens that haven't left the garden yet, I haven't seen her be aggressive with any of the other ducks. They were in a pretty small, enclosed space at night but had a decent sized run that they would go out to during the day and had the ability to leave the coop if they wished. I have moved my drake in there and have since moved my three girls out to the large coop area and they have free-range of the garden. Any ideas on how to stop this? I can figure out how to separate her if I absolutely need to, but I would prefer for her not to sleep alone as they all cuddle together. Any ideas on how to get this to stop? I would also like to add that is looks like she has pin feathers coming in, but they aren't fluffing quite yet. It also only recently tanked in temp, and we had a huge snowstorm (talking snowed non-stop for three days) and she went from laying 5-6 days a week to nothing. Could it be stress molt instead of feather pecking? I'll grab pictures in the morning. Thanks in advance!
