After going through numerous posts of similar issues, I'm still stumped. Here's some background: Over the past few weeks I believe I've developed some mean BO's picking on other girls. It started with them picking on a few of the SLW's and one of the Americaunas (Fefe). The "targets" had feathers picked from around their rump and on their back by their tail. Fefe ended up with a hole in her back one day when they must've ganged up on her. I Blukoted her and the SLW's and put some pine tar on Fefe as well. I upped their protein with BOSS morning and evening instead of their usual scratch. (They get Layena pellets besides.) AND...with the nicer weather and grass starting to show from under all the snow, I've been letting them out all day to free-range. OK...so they were good for a few days, but now we're back to picking again. I also see that the Black Australorps have all lost feathers from around their necks now. The only unscathed birds are all 18 Buffs and the 4 RIR's. I have NO ROOSTER and have looked for bugs/nits and think I can rule that out. I HAVE seen a buff or 2 or 3 or 4! being bullies. One of the SLW's seems afraid to come down from the roost for fear of getting pecked.
And on top of it all, egg production is down to a dozen a day out of 38 birds! I thought springtime was supposed to be bumper-crop egg laying time! All the birds will be 1 year old in April. and their coop is 7'x16' with 4 south-facing windows. They were producing 25+ eggs a day in the cold dark December we had - I was expecting at least that many now that it's warmer with more daylight. I do have a nightlight in the coop - should I remove that to help stop nighttime pecking? Do I change brands of layer feed? Am I seeing molting and pecking? Anything I could try aside from trying to figure out who the bullies are?
