Feather Picking

[TFULLEN]

Many of my chickens have missing feathers. One even has blood stains around her white neck. I have witnessed a couple of chickens pulling out feathers of other chickens. It seems the bantam's are picking on the big chickens. Silly huh? Are they missing something in their diet? How do I change the behavior? They have scratch daily, plenty of feed, cabbage hanging for fun. What else can I do?

 

[iwiw60]

Many of my chickens have missing feathers. One even has blood stains around her white neck. I have witnessed a couple of chickens pulling out feathers of other chickens. It seems the bantam's are picking on the big chickens. Silly huh? Are they missing something in their diet? How do I change the behavior? They have scratch daily, plenty of feed, cabbage hanging for fun. What else can I do?

Can't help you on correcting that behavior, but that chicken that has the bloody neck? Get her isolated asap. It'll get real bloody and they may end up killing her....seriously.

 

[TFULLEN]

Thanks. I will.

 

[aart]

What kind of space are they in......how big is coop and run(feet by feet)?
Feather picking can be a crowding issue.


If they have plenty of room:
Up their protein, especially animal protein.
What kind of feed are you feeding, what is the protein level.
I free feed high protein(20%) crumble so because I dilute their protein level with the scratch and other foods they get later in the day.

 

[TFULLEN]

They are in a chicken hotel. Very nice and large. I should charge! I feed them an organic layer crumble that has a lot of protein. I do give them scratch in the morning and lettuce, bread, cabbage a few times a week. Maybe I am giving them too many treats? I did use a flock block for a while and they seemed to do better. I did have to cull one of the frequent and mean feather pickers today since she was really injuring a couple girls. It seems that my bantams are meaner than my standards. Thanks for your advice.