Gold Bond Powder

[JABi]

I recently bought 50 8 month old ren hens only to find out they had been raised in to small of pen. Many have bald spots not bleeding where other bossy hens had pulled out feathers on tail and neck. I'm sorting out these bossy hens for dinner table but was wandering if I could dust these spots with gold bond poweder to speed up the healing

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I recently bought 50 8 month old ren hens only to find out they had been raised in to small of pen. Many have bald spots not bleeding where other bossy hens had pulled out feathers on tail and neck. I'm sorting out these bossy hens for dinner table but was wandering if I could dust these spots with gold bond poweder to speed up the healing

Hi

Welcome To BYC

Can you post some photos?

If they have broken or irritated skin from being plucked/picked on, it would be best to apply some Blu-Kote, Vetericyn or triple antibiotic ointment to the bald spots.

Aggression, feather picking/pulling can become a habit if they were originally house in a small area. Providing them with more space, adding some outside perches/obstacles where they can get away from each other and giving them something to "stay busy" ( hang some veggies in a couple of places for them to pick at, dump a pile of leaves/pine needles for them to scratch in and explore, etc) may be helpful.

I'm sure you have more than one feeding station with 50 hens, but consider adding a couple more spaced out as far from each other as possible so the aggressors can't control food. Some feather picking issues can be due to lack of protein as well. Offer extra protein in the form of a high protein feed (18-20%) or consider offering hard boiled egg, tuna, mackerel or meat in addition to your normal feed.

Keep us posted.