Help! Need answers!

[jennabeck3]

My chickens feathers seem like they are no longer smooth or "pretty."
Most of my flock seems to have dingy looking feather and I'm wondering am I not feeding them enough or do they have mites, lice, ect. Can someone please tell me what might me up? :-/

 

[jak2002003]

Can you post some photos of them?

You can help them get better feather condition by.......

Providing a dust bath every day
Feed good quality layer pellets
Feed greens every day
Keep the coop and run clean
Give them all a de mite dusting and de mite the coop too
Make sure that the rooster or other birds are not picking on the chickens and damaging their feathers.

the feathers should improve with all this, but you will have to wait till the next molt before the new ones come in perfect.

 

[vthokie]

How old are your chickens? Don't they go through a molting process yearly? If they are young, they undergo complete molting from 1-6 weeks of age, then partial moulting 7-9 weeks, 12-16 weeks, and 20-20 weeks of age.

Did a search on molting:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/628216/when-do-chickens-molt

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

That is what happens with mites, although there could be other reasons. Make sure you retreat at 7 days if you treat them, and treat the coop, disposing of all shavings (even in nest boxes). I switched to sand (a very thin layer) and scoop with kitty litter scoop on the floor of the coop so I don't have to throw anything away except nest box shavings each time I treat. I use permethrin poultry dust and liquid. Also poultry protector liquid for the coop sometimes.

Do you feel itchy when you handle your chickens? Are you being bitten by something? That is what happens to me when my chickens get mites. Are they shaking their heads every 5-15 seconds?

Also there are mites that just live in the coop and come out at night, so it is good to treat your coop every once in awhile.

 

[jennabeck3]

Thanks for the advice! @chickensaresweet I am new to raising chickens and ducks (only been doing it for a little over a year) so I wasn't sure if this was a common problem or thing i needed to do to them every so often. I just bought this:
The feed store said this would work on them. what do you think? I also bought some stuff that they said would work to spread out in the pen and coop. (see pic below.)