Help...all those beautiful new feathers are missing!

[WoodlandWoman]

Plain suet is just fat. It's usually fat from beef cattle. The only protein content in it will be from whatever you put in as additional ingredients. Fat won't help give them protein, but it will provide extra calories they can burn to stay warm in the winter. Peanut butter and sunflower seeds added to it will have some usable protein in it. I'm sure they enjoy it and it would give them something to peck at.

Even though the feather eating is a habit now, I would still look at supplying them some additional protein and see if that helps. Free range chickens should have plenty of foraging to do, to keep themselves busy, so I'd be concerned that their diet is still lacking in some way. I'd also add some sunflower seeds to their diet, for the methionine. Out of curiosity, what brands of feed have you been feeding them? What else have you been feeding them? Do you leave food available 24/7?

 

[Juniperr]

I had the same issue! Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens had some good suggestions. First, it could be because they are bored. Try hanging something shiny for them to peck at. When I had this problem, I just hung up some aluminum foil balls with twine. They went crazy pecking them. Second, chickens tend to peck at new feathers because that's what chickens do to try and understand something new. Unfortunately, new feathers are filled with blood and once a chick tastes blood they want more. It's the first stages of what's termed "chicken cannibalism." To discourage the pecking, switch to a red brooder light. This way they can't see red blood because everything looks red. You can also buy a product called "Rooster Booster" at your local feed store. It seemed to help when my baby chicks were picking on one of the others. It has some nasty tasting compounds in it as well as some healing properties. Good luck and I hope everything works out!

 

[Cluck-a-Doodle-Doo]

Out of the last hundred or so birds we've raised, we only had a problem with feather eating in one group of 25 from a large hatchery. Pine tar worked ok for us when they were less than about 2 months old, they didn't like the taste but we had to keep plenty of the pine tar on the chicks for it to do a good job. We even mixed it with flour to make it a bit thicker a few times. In the end, the only thing that worked really well was separating them into smaller groups and giving them more room. They now have a 10,000 sq/ft run.

As a side note, we have a mama hen who pulls feathers out of our rooster's tails about once every few days. She then breaks them up into small pieces and feeds them to her chicks. I suppose you can never get COMPLETELY away from some problems.