Feather picking and egg laying-PLEASE HELP

[hennypenny806]

We have 5 hens-all who are starting to lose (or have lost) their feathers on their back and around their vents. We have checked for mites and lice-don't see any sign of either. They dust bathe regularly, we use DE in the coop and run. Now their egg production has slowed dramatically. Or so we thought. Now it seems they may be eating their eggs as we saw dried yolk in the nesting box on the shavings.

We leave oyster shell out for them and their food is organic and high in protein. They are a little over a year old. We have witnessed them pecking on each other. We have tried blue kote and peck no more. The situation seems to be getting worse.

Can anyone offer any suggestions on what to do? Thanks.

 

[BaileyMChicks]

Hi I have the same problem, well, except the egg disappearing/eating/decrease thing. I'm not sure what to do....I've never had that problem...sorry....:/

Do you only have five chickens? Because we have 30 and I believe the reason mine are pecking each other is because of overcrowding. We are building a bigger coop soon. But if you only have a few chickens, I'm not sure.... Do you have a rooster who seems a bit aggressive towards hens? He could be the cause. My banty roo ends up with a beak full of feathers when he tries to mount our girls. And I heard that if you put Vic's rub(chest rub stuff for coughs; not sure if that's the name, but whatever) on the bald spots, they will leave it alone, cuz they absolutely hate the stuff. It worked ok when my white cochin banty got pretty torn up. Put some blue kote on her, let it dry, then smothered the area with the chest rub stuff and she was left alone. She hasn't been pecked at since. I have yet to test the chest rub theory, but from what I've heard it should work. But yeah, hope ur birds' feathers come back in and the pecking stops.

Btw, my girls feathers r missing in the same spots as yours, and I though mine might have lice or mites too, but it's only certain hens and my roo doesn't have any missing feathers, so the mites/lice were ruled out. Plus I also see mine peck at each other too. And I really would like it to stop. I hope this helped in some way....

 

[hennypenny806]

Thanks-we do not have a rooster. We ordered a roll away nesting box so they can't reach the eggs-we don't have it yet so no idea if it will work or if they will lay elsewhere.

Another suggestion someone gave me was to fill plastic eggs with mustard. If they get them open, they wont like the taste of mustard and that takes care of that.

Good luck!