Help! Bloody chicken with missing feathers

[Urbanfarmer2378]

We adopted a silver laced wyandotte this past winter. They believe she was born in the summer of 2011. About a month ago she started to look pretty ratty. It began with her head and then progressed to her back and finally her tail. We checked for parasites and found nothing so we thought she was just molting. Our other 2 chickens are looking great. Her tail feathers came in this past week but still looked pretty bad. When we came home from work this evening we found a bloody coop and run. Her new tail feathers were all gone and he neck also looked to be missing more feathers. She gets along great with out other 2 chickens and have seen no indication of fighting. She is still laying eggs on a regular basis and eating and drinking normally. She has also taken to digging out holes in the soil and rolling around in the fresh dirt. She does not itch or scratch other than today after her bloody incident. Any thoughts on whats going on or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[ccrow]

If she had a blood feather break, it could have started the other birds pecking at her. If any stubs of the blood feathers are left, you should pull them out so she doesn't keep bleeding. I don't know if this will work as well for older birds, but I had this happen with chicks, and put a piece of duck tape over the spot; it stayed on long enough(10 days or so) to keep the other chicks from continuing to pick at her. (Plus, gave her the name 'Ducky' till we couldn't tell her apart anymore)

 

[K-12 Chickens]

The other two hens are probably pecking(picking) her worse than the usual peck to establish dominace(this happened to two of my wyandottes). You could try covering the the wounds with Blu-Kote(found at most feed stores, covers wounds in a purplish-blue spray, therefore masking the red color). You could also either seperate her for a little while or put a chicken saddle on her that will cover up the back a great deal.