Help! Bloody feet feathers

[rubysmom]

My Brahma has bloody feet, is this bad? I noticed some blod on the feet feahers on my light brahma. I can't see where the blood might be coming from? Some of her feet feathers just have small nubs but no feather?
What should I do?

 

[rubysmom]

Anybody

 

[Buster]

You have a chicken who is pecking the feet of your other birds. There is something called Rooster Booster Anti-peck Lotion that you can put on their feet to deter pecking, as well as other products that are out there. Watch your chickens very closely and determine who is doing the pecking and cull the culprit. I had to do that after exhausting every other attempt to rehabilitate the offending chicken. Good luck to you.

 

[rubysmom]

I only have hens, is that normal? I'm aftaid to ask what culling is

I'm really hoping it dosen't mean what I'm thinking it means.
So if one of them is pecking her feet this lotion should deter them? Is that why so many of the feathers are missing on her feet?
I always thought that the feather picking happened when birds were unhappy? Mine are living in the lap of luxury. A gigantic coop, huge run, free range time and there's only 5 of them.
Is it common for other birds to pick on the Light Brahmas because the feathers on their feet are tempting to them? Do they pick at feet with no feathers too?
Do they pick the regular feathers off each other too?
These are my first chickens as I'm sure you have already realized...

Thanks so much for the help.
Claudia

 

[Dawn419]

Culling can also mean getting rid of the pecking/picking culprit as in finding another home for it.

Maybe they need more protein in their diet as that can also be a reason for feather pecking. I feed cooked/mashed up eggs/fish and other meats, once a week for added protein here and haven't had any problems with feather picking.

Hope this is some help!


Dawn

 

[fallenweeble]

hi rubysmom,
i've read that chickens can be more attracted to the feet of birds with feathers on them, especially if the pecking bird does not have feathered feet.

good luck!

 

[Buster]

This is true- I have only noticed pecked feet on birds with feathers on their legs, but when I narrowed down the culprit, it had advanced to pecking at EVERYONE'S feet. You can try boosting their protein by feeding scrambled eggs as well.

 

[rubysmom]

I did switch them over to a new organic feed about two weeks ago, I think it has no animal protein? It has 20 % protein but as organic soybean meal? Maybe that's not cutting it for them?

I am giving them mealworms too, but I'm never sure how many I should give. Boy do they love em!!!

They are the small/medium ones, how many can they have a day?

Is it okay to give them egss? They're all laying hens.

I'm going to keep aclose eye on them today and see if I can find the picker.

 

[rubysmom]

Oh my, could it be those scaly leg mites? How do you tell if you have those?