Hen is plucking out her feathers

[bluebird-azurite]

Howdy,
I have a pet hen who has been plucking out a ton of feathers and I would like to know if this is something I should be concerned about or if I'm just being a worry wort. I recently had to take her with me to go see family for Easter so I'm suspecting that it might be the stress from the drive/new environment that's making her do it. I'm a little on the fence about that theory though because I don't really have a lot of land so I take her to my local park pretty much everyday so she can free range all she wants and she's never really gotten stressed out from the drive.
She's about a year and a half, is very used to being taken new places, and has never pulled out so many of her own feathers before which is why I'm a little concerned. She's not eating the feathers so I know it's not a diet deficiency and aside from the plucking, she's acting like her normal self.
I just want to make sure that this isn't a big issue, I tend to get a little paranoid when it comes to the health of my animals (I thought my dog had a heart defect once because he coughed like twice). She is plucking out her downy feathers from pretty much every area of her body so I don't think it's broodiness plus she hasn't been broody recently or laid any eggs at all for that matter.
If this is a problem, how can I get her to stop doing it? I know downy feathers are important for thermoregulation and I don't want her plucking herself bald.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Have you checked her thoroughly for mites, lice? The fact that you say you take her to different places means she's more susceptible to picking up things that could be in the environment. Do you have other chickens? If not, how much time does she spend alone? Stress can cause parrots to pick out their own feathers, so I would have to imagine chickens might work the same way?

 

[bluebird-azurite]

Have you checked her thoroughly for mites, lice? The fact that you say you take her to different places means she's more susceptible to picking up things that could be in the environment. Do you have other chickens? If not, how much time does she spend alone? Stress can cause parrots to pick out their own feathers, so I would have to imagine chickens might work the same way?

I have! I checked her vent first then her feathers/skin and she's clean as far as I can tell. When I did pull her feathers back to check, some of them came off super easy like she was molting but they're only supposed to do that once a year right? I do not have other chickens, I am very aware that chickens are flock animals and don't do well at all by themselves. I made the mistake of hand-rearing her as a single chick because my aunt didn't have any other chicks (she had a sibling but their mom killed it) and didn't have time to give her the attention she needed so I took care of her and now she's really bonded to me and my dog. She's never alone and I'm never out of the house for more than a few hours a day, lots of times I'm home all day though. My dog is tiny, blind, and been around other animals his whole life so I'm not worried about him hurting her. When I'm gone, he's with her and she lays down next to him and even tries preening him so it's safe to say they like each other.
Sorry if this is a really long explanation, I'm aware this is not the conventional way to keep a chicken. That's why I want to make sure I'm meeting all her needs and making sure she lives a good life, because I really love her she's my little lady .

 

[Joanne Fredrich]

Hi there. I just wanted to share that I have one hen out of 26 hens (plus 4 roosters) that decided more than a year ago to pull out a lot of her feathers. She is a Rhode Island Red and was totally normal for the first 3.5 years of her life. Then the last year and a half decided she liked to pull her feathers out. I have no explanation. I did have two bad-behaving roosters that needed to be dispatched last fall, and i did discover that there was a bit of chicken lice which I had no knowledge of before. These birds are ridiculously well cared for and I was shocked that there were chicken lice present when the bird was being de-feathered after being dispatched (it really needed to be dispatched). She grew nearly all of them back, and then a couple months ago started to pluck again. I have no idea why. She is just about to turn 5-years old now, another RI Red of the same age gives me eggs, but I am not sure this one is giving me eggs (though she can live out her life in full whether she gives me eggs or not). She is the only bird I have ever seen do this. I don't worry about it any longer as it seems out of my control and completely not associated with any condition that I am providing.