Hen pecking & feather regrowth

[nicolevg]

If the entire feather is gone it should start growing back in a few weeks. You should be seeing pin feathers. If any part of the shaft is left that feather will not grow back until she molts. I don't care how much protein you force down them, if any of the shaft is left it will not grow back until she molts. I think that's a big part of what is going on.

Your coop and run are very tight. Any behavioral problems can be made much worse by crowding. Overcrowding can be a cause of feather picking. To me the best boredom buster is giving them plenty of room. Think about your kids. Are they better behaved when they are shoehorned into a small space and left there or are they better behaved when they have more room? Are you seeing feather picking when they are out foraging or when they are cooped up in that tiny run?

It sounds like you have identified one specific hen that is feather picking, quite likely pecking pin feathers as they start to grow back. You can try isolating that hen for a week or so to see if you can break her of the habit of picking feathers. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

Regular chicken feed contains all the nutrients and stuff they need for a balanced diet. That's protein, fats, salt, amino acids, fiber, and many other things. They don't need any treats to help them with a balanced diet. But many of us like to give them treats. Mine get kitchen wastes and garden wastes and excess. I toss fruit into them from the orchard. Like yours mine forage for a lot of their food too so I've lost all control over micromanaging their diet. Still I try to not overdo it with the treats. A general rule of thumb on here is that if you limit their treats to about 10% of their daily diet so that the chicken feed is at least 90% of what they eat they maintain that balanced diet. How do you know what makes up 10% of their diet? Another rule of thumb, it's not an exact science. If they can clean up their treats in about 10 to 20 minutes you are good to go. That's daily.

Good luck, these things are not always easy.

Would broccoli stalks, lettuce bottoms and larvae/crickets be considered treats? I don’t really consider them treats, as there are chickens I’ve seen in my research who subside solely on food scraps, seeds and bugs/whatever else they forage.

And what is considered the needed coop and run space for 10 standard sized chickens? Everything I read online prior to getting chickens said that was sufficient. Plus, we don’t have any more money to spend on expanding the coop and run. These chickens are already wayyyy more expensive than I anticipated, given the increased cost of lumber and building supplies. What should’ve been a $300-500 coop and run for my husband to build ended up being almost triple that.

Their pecking is definitely diminished when they free range, hence why I let them do that. We originally didn’t plan on letting them out much unless we were supervising, but obviously I don’t have the time to sit down there with my chickens and watch them free range for the afternoon and evening hours they’re out on their own. The many foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, hawks and other predators haven’t gotten them yet, so I plan on letting them free range till they start getting picked off. They’re not very friendly birds / are skittish around me still a month later, so I wouldn’t be too upset if I lost several / most of the flock and had to start over again with hatching eggs next spring. I’m thinking having some hens that were raised together since birth might’ve been a better way to go, now that I see how these hens act together. I thought ours were all raised together, but when I went to pick them up, the lady told me she’d only had them in the came flock/coop/run together for the past several weeks and she thought they were doing fine together. Judging by their behavior, I’d say differently. The buffs are super mean to the other hens, and then the other hens become aggressive too trying to defend themselves, so now they’re all aggressive.

They do still peck and chase after each other when free ranging, but not as much as when they’re caged. I’ve noticed some of their feathers are broken, which I know once we fixed till after they molt. But they have lots of little down feathers that come in and then get picked out within a week of coming in.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Would broccoli stalks, lettuce bottoms and larvae/crickets be considered treats?

With most people on this forum anything other than regular chicken feed would be considered "treats". Many people on this forum have a small backyard flock in a coop and barren pen where the only thing the chickens eat is what they are given. Many want the "best" for their chickens and are willing to micromanage their diets to achieve a perfect diet.

Where the 10% kind of comes from is that if the only "treat" you give them is lettuce bottoms you don't want that to be a major part of their diet. The more varied their diet the less important that is. But online I have no idea what you are feeding them so I assume it may be a lot of the same stuff every day. It is hard to come up with something that covers everybody so I try to be safe.

I don’t really consider them treats, as there are chickens I’ve seen in my research who subside solely on food scraps, seeds and bugs/whatever else they forage.

I grew up on a farm like that. The only time the chickens were fed anything was when there was snow on the ground. They didn't even get food scraps, those went to the hogs. The quality of the forage has a lot to do with that. If all they have is a manicured lawn where there is only grass and it is kept mowed so it doesn't go to seed there is not much nutritional variety there. If they have a variety of grasses and weeds where many are allowed to go to seed, the forage is much better. Having a pile of dead leaves or such where they can scratch and find creepy crawlies, even better.

You are not going to raise show chickens like this. Many people like to pour a lot of protein down them so they are large for their breed. They will still lay a lot of eggs when they are mostly foraging but those eggs won't be as large as they could be on a special diet. I don't know the quality of your forage or how many hours a day they get outside, but I don't think quality of food is a big problem for you.

And what is considered the needed coop and run space for 10 standard sized chickens? Everything I read online prior to getting chickens said that was sufficient.

I don't know what you read about space. I personally do not believe in magic numbers for chickens. Besides, which numbers do you believe? I've read anything from one square feet to 15 square feet per chicken on this forum and that's only in the coop. The run is usually not mentioned. If you follow the link in my signature below you can see why I think the right number of square feet is different for each of us. I firmly believe the more room you can give them within reason the better off you are.

Plus, we don’t have any more money to spend on expanding the coop and run. These chickens are already wayyyy more expensive than I anticipated, given the increased cost of lumber and building supplies. What should’ve been a $300-500 coop and run for my husband to build ended up being almost triple that.

It was painful writing what I did about room in my other post for this very reason.

The many foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, hawks and other predators haven’t gotten them yet, so I plan on letting them free range till they start getting picked off.

I did this with mine. The problem wasn't the wildlife, but people like to abandon dogs in the country even when it is free to drop them off at the animal shelter. I really did not enjoy shooting those dogs when they were killing my chickens. So I got electric netting to give them room but protect them from ground based predators. I haven't had to shoot a dog since.

They’re not very friendly birds / are skittish around me still a month later, so I wouldn’t be too upset if I lost several / most of the flock and had to start over again with hatching eggs next spring.

I don't have individual chickens. I have a flock that can have changeable members. I try to solve for the peace of the flock and not in favor of one specific chicken. I find if I eat troublemakers the trouble often goes away.

I think from your observations you can see that they are too crowded. I would not add any more until I took care of the space problem. That may be by reducing the number of chickens or adding more room.

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

The general "rule" is 4-5 sq ft of coop space per chicken, and double that in the run. It really all depends on the breeds you keep on whether you can get away with less than that. Ones that are described as "tolerant of confinement" in my experience don't get as bothered when their space is a little on the low side. Free ranging is a good solution to not enough space in the run. I feel you about the price of lumber. I've been keeping a sharp eye out for alternative sources of lumber myself. Free pallets and the like, cause ain't no way in heck I'm buying from a box store right now. Need to check the lumber yards though...I've heard they're more reasonable depending on the place.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Given the size of the run and no plans to expand it, plus the fact you aren't attached to these birds, I would opt to free range the flock most of the day, and that'll keep them occupied and help pull their attention off of picking at each other.

I assume your main interest in having chickens is the eggs for your family? Once these birds hit 2-3 years you can either sell off whoever is left in the flock, or invite them to dinner, and start over with chicks that you can raise yourself and it'll help avoid some of the issues with these birds not being friendly and not getting along.

 

[nicolevg]

Given the size of the run and no plans to expand it, plus the fact you aren't attached to these birds, I would opt to free range the flock most of the day, and that'll keep them occupied and help pull their attention off of picking at each other.

I assume your main interest in having chickens is the eggs for your family? Once these birds hit 2-3 years you can either sell off whoever is left in the flock, or invite them to dinner, and start over with chicks that you can raise yourself and it'll help avoid some of the issues with these birds not being friendly and not getting along.

Yes, we bought them for the eggs. Our HOA allows a max of 10 chickens per acre, and we have 1 acre. I got the max assuming they'd lay a whole bunch in the first couple years & then taper off as they got older, but would still lay a sufficient amount for just our family. Right now, we're gifting eggs left and right and our family, friends and neighbors aren't complaining lol. It does appear there's 1 that's particularly aggressive, so I'm thinking of "inviting her to dinner" sooner rather than later. She's the only one we've named (we've named her Karen), and none of the other chickens have names, so yes, I'm not attached to them lol. We'll see how things go, but eventually when our kids are a bit older, I'd like them to experience having chicks, and ideally, I'd get hatching eggs and give them to one of our broody hens so she can raise them for me cuz I'm pretty sure I'd kill most of them if I tried to incubate/brood them myself.

We do have plans to eventually add a chicken tunnel. It would go around the perimeter of the horse paddock where our coop is currently located. My husband is looking in to getting some pallets and using those to build the chunnel since he already has plenty of hardware cloth.

 

[nicolevg]

The general "rule" is 4-5 sq ft of coop space per chicken, and double that in the run. It really all depends on the breeds you keep on whether you can get away with less than that. Ones that are described as "tolerant of confinement" in my experience don't get as bothered when their space is a little on the low side. Free ranging is a good solution to not enough space in the run. I feel you about the price of lumber. I've been keeping a sharp eye out for alternative sources of lumber myself. Free pallets and the like, cause ain't no way in heck I'm buying from a box store right now. Need to check the lumber yards though...I've heard they're more reasonable depending on the place.

That's good to know. Thanks. Our coop seems to be a good, comfortable size. They usually all sleep next to each other and try to squish together on the same roost anyway. It can get below freezing here in the winters, so I didn't want to make the coop too big and spacious so it wouldn't get too cold in the wintertime since we're at 4000 feet elevation. And besides when they're first getting settled in for the night for the first 5 minutes or so during dusk, they don't seem to peck or get angry at each other for the rest of the night. So I think the coop itself is good. It's just the run. We did have plans to build a chunnel & my husband already has enough hardware cloth for that. But the wood for that would get quite expensive right now, so at your suggestion, we're looking in to using pallets even though that wouldn't be as strong against big predators. Hawks and the local bobcat family that live at the other end of our property are my biggest concerns for daytime predators, which would be protected by a chunnel. For the past 2 weeks, I've been letting the hens free range from 12/1pm till sundown around 8/8:30pm when they put themselves to bed. My kids and I go down there periodically throughout the day, which seems to be effective at keeping the predators away for now. So I think we'll keep that up until the chunnel can be completed. We planned on going out of town for 2 nights next weekend, so I got a whole bunch of new chicken toys that will hopefully help distract them when we're gone and they can't free range.

Here's a pic of the current set-up. They love the wild grasses on the neighboring vacant lot, and they also love the mustard, dandelion and lambsquarter that grow wild in the middle of the paddock.

 

[rosemarythyme]

That's good to know. Thanks. Our coop seems to be a good, comfortable size. They usually all sleep next to each other and try to squish together on the same roost anyway. It can get below freezing here in the winters, so I didn't want to make the coop too big and spacious so it wouldn't get too cold in the wintertime since we're at 4000 feet elevation.

Unless you're getting arctic type weather cold itself isn't a big concern. More important than trying to keep a coop "cozy" or warm is to keep it dry and ventilated, so moisture can escape.