Feather picking and a possible way to control it

[Ponypoor]

We give tryptophan to horses to calm them down, humans take it as a sleep aid.

I can see how it would help hens settle down.

 

[azygous]

Observation after morning feeding:

Noticed several of my most energetic hens standing around acting sedated. Not drunk, just sedated.

I looked up how long Tryptophan is active in the system and it said not very long. I had a hunch I might need to figure a way to get this stuff into the flock spaced out over the day, but unless I can find an alternative, I may need to forego mixing it into the feed and go back to distributing snacks.

 

[Ponypoor]

How surprised I was this morning when I tossed my broody hen outside for a break from her 'I wanna be a mom' thing. She walked over to her sister and began plucking out her tail feathers !! I never saw any of my hens doing this before, and I wonder if it is a stress response to my not letting her 'be broody'. Her other sister just hatched some chicks yesterday and now she can hear them all cheeping and chirping, she is chuckling along with the mama hen. I was almost tempted to give her a couple of the chicks to mother but seeing as how I am new to this chicken thing, mama hen is a first timer, and Broody Hen is also a newbie I figured that was more stress than I was willing to take on.

I think she knows what I am reading online hahaha. Anyways I tossed her back into the hen house to brood.... This chicken thing is very stressful hahaha!

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Good looking boys!
Very interesting idea.
How many mg of Tryptophan are in each capsule?
What is your target dose/pound?
Have you considered adding animal protein in your feed mix?
The reason I ask this is after reading this thread it got me thinking about my senior rooster and several of his hens.
I know I had a neurotic feather picker. I caught her on the coop cam plucking the muff and beard of my Ameraucana rooster. Things improved after she left the flock.
View attachment 2852592
I used to make my own feed that used fish meal to bring the protein content up to 19%. It comprised a bit over half of their daily feed ration. I had to stop making it due to lack of time and being overwhelmed with other life issues and projects. I've been feeding 100% Flock Raiser ever since I stopped last summer.
Now my head rooster, a Salmon Faverolles, has had his beard and muffs plucked as well as several tail and back feathers, one of my EEs had her whole neck plucked (she looks just terrible) and several other EEs are muff and beardless. The increase in plucking happened when I stopped my homemade mix with the fish meal. It's not a horrible issue at all, but like you, I hate seeing any of them get their glorious new plumage damaged.
Fish contains 250-310 mg Tryptophan per 100 grams of flesh. I'm not sure how much higher it is in the fish meal.
Ironically, chicken meat seems to have the highest level of Tryptophan. Go figure.

Muffed birds seem to always get the feather plucked out as hens love to pluck the males face. Which is why my black am rooster lives by himself lol

 

[aart]

Observation after morning feeding:

Noticed several of my most energetic hens standing around acting sedated. Not drunk, just sedated.

I looked up how long Tryptophan is active in the system and it said not very long. I had a hunch I might need to figure a way to get this stuff into the flock spaced out over the day, but unless I can find an alternative, I may need to forego mixing it into the feed and go back to distributing snacks.

Might be interesting to see how long that first dose lasts?

 

[azygous]

Since giving yesterday's dose of tryptophan in the morning seemed to do about as much good as if I took a sleeping pill when I wake up in the morning, I'm going to distribute today's dose in their fermented feed at the afternoon feeding.

Over the years, I've observed that afternoon is when aggressive behavior seems to ramp up. In addition, I will keep prepared "snacks" in the run to give any hen whom I observe behaving aggressively.

I've improved on the snacks. I no longer make a batter and grill it. I use a slice of bread that is coated lightly with olive oil and then I sprinkle lightly and evenly tryptophan powder on it, rub it into the bread, then cut into small squares less than half an inch. This should give an aggressive hen an immediate calming. We shall see how this works out.

 

[fargosmom]

Any results from your experiment?

 

[azygous]

I've been meaning to update. Thanks for reminding me.

It's so far been a bust. But part of the failure is mine in that I often forget to mix the tryptophan with their afternoon feeding.

I see no improvement with my known feather pickers in spite of increasing the dosage. And I have a new feather picker. One of my youngest, a Buttercup, is sneaking around yanking feathers out of everyone, most of all from her mate.

Right now the feather picking is picking up due to hormones. I'm going to try to resume the experiment. Maybe I need to dose the feather pickers directly. I'll report back after trying this for this next week.

 

[azygous]

Update. I've been giving the four worst pickers the tryptophan in #0 gel caps. It's the easiest method I've come up with to dose the ones that need it the most. The short term results so far are a decreased incidence of picking, but not altogether gone.

But I may have discovered a more sinister cause of the broken, tattered feathers in the short interval since fall molt. Depluming mites. Some of my chickens probably have had them for years. Due to my bias toward picking, I overlooked this.

What got me to notice was my oldest rooster's neck feathers appeared to be thinning and fading despite the boys being kept away from the neck picking hens. Strawberry the Cream Legbar has golden neck feathers, and they have been turning white. Then I saw feathers from his neck in the boys' run. I picked them up and noticed how thin they are, sort of threadbare like an old pillow case after decades of wear. The feathers were stripped. Same with his saddle feathers.

Here's the article that confirmed my suspicions. https://wagwalking.com/bird/condition/depluming-scabies It was like little blinking road signs leading straight to the cause.

So, yesterday I mixed up some Elector PSP dipping solution and put it in a squeeze bottle with a pointy applicator tip, and I saturated the skin at the base of all of the feathers on the two roosters and three hens with the same affected feathers. The day wasn't real cold, but it was crisp, so I turned on the heat lamps in the runs so the soggy victims could keep warm as they dried.

This is an unexpected development. It is making me reassess the extent of actual feather picking in my flock. I've always suspected feather quality issues may have less to do with protein deficiency than with other causes, such as how some chickens' brains are wired, but depluming mites never crossed my mind.

 

[fargosmom]

This is very interesting. Thanks for the link especially. I’m going to look at that in my case too, just to be safe.