got a problem

[patrolman490]

I have six birds, two Americuana's and four RR's. Everything was going well until about a month ago when all but one of the Americuan's started losing feathers on their rears, I suspected pecking so I put pine tar and blue Kote. Doesn't seem to help. Now it is really bad. They all seem to be pecking each other. Don't have the space to separate them all. Still getting plenty of eggs but the birds look nasty with little or no feathers on their rear ends, except for the one Amer who probably started the whole thing.

Any thoughts??

 

[canada-goose]

I think you'll need to make the space to separate them. Picking can turn very, very ugly.

Debeaking sometimes works but it's very stressful for the chickens.

 

[paddock36]

Just a thought, but have you dusted them for mites? Maybe that is the root of your problems.

 

[BarkerChickens]

How much space do you have for them now? Sometimes they will peck if they are too crowded. Also, pecking can be caused by low protein. What are you feeding them? If the source is figured out, then it is just a matter of covering them until the feathers return. You may want to look into getting a few chicken aprons/jackets to cover their back and continue to pinetar/blue kote their rears. We had a pecking issue and it turned out to protein. We had our flock on 16% protein lay pellets with occasional scratch as a treat. It was too little protein for our flock, so we switched to 20% breeder pellets. Other than the occasional bossy peck, our problems are solved (well, in that department anyway).

 

[patrolman490]

Thank you for the replies. I think I have plenty of space with a run which is 6 feet high ten feet long and about five feet wide. The coup is 4 X 6.

They love to be out ranging but I can only let them out when I am around since they love to go in my neighbors yard and that is a problem. I have tried to give them different things to eat in the run like cabbage, salt pork ,fruit etc.

I will try more protein in the diet. It is such a shame since they were doing so well.