Feathers and Eggs

[ranch angel]

Hi, we are having a problem with our hens pecking out their feathers. We thought it was the rooster putting deep gashes in the hens,but he has been out a month. The hens are in a portable pen we built, it is moved every week to a new area of grass. They are also eating their eggs now. Nesting material is changed every week-2weeks. What can we do?

 

[Judy]

How old are they? What breed? What is their feed? Are they pulling their own feathers out, or each others? How many chickens do you have? What is the size of the pen and coop?

 

[ranch angel]

The hens are RIR, year old, picking at each other, we were giving them laying mash & scratch until yesterday. Now we are trying just laying mash only. We built our portable coop/run 6ft.x18ft., has 10 nest in the coop end with 3 purches. There was 18 hens but lost 8 total in the past year to coons. Have raised different breeds before but first time for RIR.. We have found out they are more.....aggressive(is that the word )then what we are use to.

 

[Judy]

Yes, that is my experience with RIR, going back to childhood. I have one left in my current flock and he is my mean roo.

I gather that nutritional deficiency and shortage of space are probably the two most common reasons for feather picking, of causes that we can do something about, at least. That is a minimal amount of space for 10 birds, and not enough for 18. Enlarging the area might or might not help the feather picking. Sometimes it indicates a protein deficiency. You could offer a protein treat every day (scratch is low in protein, so dropping that may help, but layer isn't real high either. Maybe a small bag of game bird feed for a treat, or meat scraps.

On the other hand, I have 4 hens who are true free range, wander over a couple of acres and could go further, yet one keeps a bare spot on her back from the others picking. It's not poor nutrition. I think sometimes they just get in these habits. (The rest are fenced, but both the coop and yard are quite oversized.)

Egg eating is very hard to stop; many on here just cull the birds. You only need one nest to 4 hens, so 3 would be plenty for you. You could replace your nests with 3 rollaway nests. You could try hanging a sort of curtain over the nest box, like a scrap of tshirt most of the way over the opening, as they don't seem to eat eggs in the dark. You could try putting golf balls or other fake eggs in there to frustrate their attempt to eat them.

If you do not routinely treat for worms and for lice/mites, these would also be things to consider. As parasites, any of these in effect steal the feed from the bird.

On the FAQ page there are links to some good threads on feather picking. And a quick search will give you lots of results on worms and lice/mites.

Good luck.

 

[ranch angel]

We are down to 10 hens now for this area so we hope that will be enough room. Will try game bird feed this week, will let you know how it works. Here it isn't good to let our hens free range, to many coons, foxs and others just waiting to get them. We have trapped over 20 coon this past year but still more coming. Will give the 3/4 cover a try over nest and see how that works for us. We are just the care takers for this ranch, but the animals seem like ours after all the time and care.Thank you for the tips will let you know how it works..

 

[ranch angel]

Ok, we are trying just laying mash without scratch and it is working.....The RIR's are starting to leave each others feathers alone at this time. They seem to be laying more was getting only 3-5 eggs a day now it is 6-9 eggs a day...(like it was)..Will keep watching for the feathers to grow back , it will take some time..