Hen picked on - need advice

[CarmelChickenLady]

Hi everyone! I really need some advice and please forgive me, this has been my first winter with chickens, so maybe I should have caught this sooner. My precious Hamburg who is a year and a half old and also never laid an egg that you can see in my avatar has looked gangly all winter long. None of her spotted feathers have grown back and I'll post a picture of what she looks like now. She has always been the lowest in the pecking order, but after closer inspection last night, I'm pretty sure they are pecking all of her feathers out. She eats and drinks with them without issue, so they've never made it seem like they (my other 3 hens) were the ones doing this, so I assume it's happening at night? This poor girl has very few feathers on her. So we are currently raising 10 baby chicks to add to our now flock of 4, so that's coming with a new way bigger coop which should be done in the next couple weeks. Here's my question, do I need to intervene and take her away from the other girls now and let her grown some of her feathers back and then try to reintroduce her? I just don't want her to live in a cage for weeks on end? How would I do this? Or should I just wait and hope something changes when we put them in the bigger coop? Thank you in advance!

 

[nchls school]

Hi everyone! I really need some advice and please forgive me, this has been my first winter with chickens, so maybe I should have caught this sooner. My precious Hamburg who is a year and a half old and also never laid an egg that you can see in my avatar Your avatar and the posted picture are the same hen??has looked gangly all winter long. None of her spotted feathers have grown back and I'll post a picture of what she looks like now. She has always been the lowest in the pecking order, but after closer inspection last night, I'm pretty sure they are pecking all of her feathers out. She eats and drinks with them without issue, so they've never made it seem like they (my other 3 hens) were the ones doing this, so I assume it's happening at night? Unless you have night lights there would not be any bullying going on at night as chickens can not see in the dark.This poor girl has very few feathers on her. So we are currently raising 10 baby chicks to add to our now flock of 4, so that's coming with a new way bigger coop which should be done in the next couple weeks. Here's my question, do I need to intervene and take her away from the other girls now and let her grown some of her feathers back and then try to reintroduce her? I just don't want her to live in a cage for weeks on end? How would I do this? Or should I just wait and hope something changes when we put them in the bigger coop? Thank you in advance!
If you have see no bullying there may be another factor causing this hen's feather problem. It is unlikely the other hens would pull ALL the black feathers. Other factors to check out are--parasites, nutritional, symptoms of disease other than the feathering. Quite likely other members will have ideas to share. I would separate the hen until you know what is going on. A pen where she and the flock can see each other may be the best option. Good luck.

 

[Eggs_With_Legs]

Hi everyone! I really need some advice and please forgive me, this has been my first winter with chickens, so maybe I should have caught this sooner. My precious Hamburg who is a year and a half old and also never laid an egg that you can see in my avatar has looked gangly all winter long. None of her spotted feathers have grown back and I'll post a picture of what she looks like now. She has always been the lowest in the pecking order, but after closer inspection last night, I'm pretty sure they are pecking all of her feathers out. She eats and drinks with them without issue, so they've never made it seem like they (my other 3 hens) were the ones doing this, so I assume it's happening at night? This poor girl has very few feathers on her. So we are currently raising 10 baby chicks to add to our now flock of 4, so that's coming with a new way bigger coop which should be done in the next couple weeks. Here's my question, do I need to intervene and take her away from the other girls now and let her grown some of her feathers back and then try to reintroduce her? I just don't want her to live in a cage for weeks on end? How would I do this? Or should I just wait and hope something changes when we put them in the bigger coop? Thank you in advance!

Hey there!
Do you put them all away when it's still light out? Are they in the pen in the morning for a couple hours after sunrise?
It's good to avoid keeping them confined together when it's light out, they get restless and will pick on each other.

I have had a few that pecked necks and heads. The first thing to do would be to watch them for a couple hours during the daylight and see what's going on in the flock.
If you start to see any bleeding or a lot of redness, you need to take the hen out right away and isolate her. If they are in fact pecking her, it will escalate quickly once they start pecking and wounding her skin. If they draw blood she will get badly wounded or even die, due to the fact they won't stop pecking her once they see the blood.

There could be other reasons for this feather loss, so the best thing to do is to monitor them and see.
If she is being pecked, set aside the chickens that are the offenders so they don't spread it to the rest of the flock.

 

[CarmelChickenLady]

Hi everyone! I really need some advice and please forgive me, this has been my first winter with chickens, so maybe I should have caught this sooner. My precious Hamburg who is a year and a half old and also never laid an egg that you can see in my avatar Your avatar and the posted picture are the same hen??has looked gangly all winter long. None of her spotted feathers have grown back and I'll post a picture of what she looks like now. She has always been the lowest in the pecking order, but after closer inspection last night, I'm pretty sure they are pecking all of her feathers out. She eats and drinks with them without issue, so they've never made it seem like they (my other 3 hens) were the ones doing this, so I assume it's happening at night? Unless you have night lights there would not be any bullying going on at night as chickens can not see in the dark.This poor girl has very few feathers on her. So we are currently raising 10 baby chicks to add to our now flock of 4, so that's coming with a new way bigger coop which should be done in the next couple weeks. Here's my question, do I need to intervene and take her away from the other girls now and let her grown some of her feathers back and then try to reintroduce her? I just don't want her to live in a cage for weeks on end? How would I do this? Or should I just wait and hope something changes when we put them in the bigger coop? Thank you in advance!
If you have see no bullying there may be another factor causing this hen's feather problem. It is unlikely the other hens would pull ALL the black feathers. Other factors to check out are--parasites, nutritional, symptoms of disease other than the feathering. Quite likely other members will have ideas to share. I would separate the hen until you know what is going on. A pen where she and the flock can see each other may be the best option. Good luck.

Yes, those are the same chicken. Sad, right? Her spots just haven't come back.

We do not have night lights out there, so it must not be happening at night then which is good, I suppose.

I took some pictures tonight that I'll share. I see no evidence of lice or mites. Her crop was nice and full so she's eating. She honestly acts like a healthy chicken, but just looks like a drowned rat. Any other thoughts? Could she just be continually molting? Thank you so much for your input!

 

[CarmelChickenLady]

Hey there!
Do you put them all away when it's still light out? Are they in the pen in the morning for a couple hours after sunrise?
It's good to avoid keeping them confined together when it's light out, they get restless and will pick on each other.

I have had a few that pecked necks and heads. The first thing to do would be to watch them for a couple hours during the daylight and see what's going on in the flock.
If you start to see any bleeding or a lot of redness, you need to take the hen out right away and isolate her. If they are in fact pecking her, it will escalate quickly once they start pecking and wounding her skin. If they draw blood she will get badly wounded or even die, due to the fact they won't stop pecking her once they see the blood.

There could be other reasons for this feather loss, so the best thing to do is to monitor them and see.
If she is being pecked, set aside the chickens that are the offenders so they don't spread it to the rest of the flock.

Hi! So their coop door is always open unless it gets into the teens so they can always go down into their run, but I typically let them out to free range around 1 pm and they'll let themselves back into their coop when it gets dark.

I have seen them peck at her, but not incessantly, just one here or there and I've never seen them draw blood, but I'll be on the look out. Please see pictures I just posted of her skin. Do those pictures show something I'm just not seeing?

 

[Eggs_With_Legs]

Hi! So their coop door is always open unless it gets into the teens so they can always go down into their run, but I typically let them out to free range around 1 pm and they'll let themselves back into their coop when it gets dark.

I have seen them peck at her, but not incessantly, just one here or there and I've never seen them draw blood, but I'll be on the look out. Please see pictures I just posted of her skin. Do those pictures show something I'm just not seeing?

I looked at the pictures, around the vent, head, and neck seem normal to me, the odd thing is it looks like she's missing feathers under her wing and on her breast? I don't really see how they're get to her breast unless she was on a perch maybe and they were beneath her.
She looks pretty healthy to me, definitely on the smaller side though.

I wonder if she has a deficiency. Do you feed them all chicken feed with about 16% protein? It does strike me as odd she's never laid an egg. You said they free range so they should be getting grit and all that good stuff.
Other than that, I'd wonder if she might have a skin problem. Or, she may just be a sickly bird.

Is she the only white bird in your flock?
She might just be too different, I wouldn't really put anything past chickens. Some of mine have been pecked in weird places aswell, and sometimes it's just because they look odd. She does have a big contrast between her feathers and skin, that will attract a lot of unwanted attention from the others, so you'll have to be extra careful to make sure she doesn't get hurt.
I'd definitely separate her, she's missing a lot of feathers. Once they get down to the skin like that you could go out and find a terrible wound.
Try separating her for a couple weeks in a box in your basement or garage. Her feathers should grow back quite a bit pretty quickly since she's still young.
Then I'd just try to reintroduce her. If everyone's picking on her though, you may have to cull her.

Let us know how it goes, I'd love to know if you find a solution!

 

[aart]

I don't think this is a pecking problem....looks like funky featherage.
She had good feathers before winter?
Did you raise her from a chick?

 

[Mrs. K]

I think she is a slow molter. It does not look like feather picking to me. Feather picking make an angry bright red skin. This just looks like a normal pink skin. It is funny that she lost her spots.

I am against separating her from the flock if she is healthy, eating, bright eyed and active, don't interfere with that. You checked for parasites, other than that she is not at an disadvantage. I vote leave her be, IMO separating birds often causes more problems than it solves.

Mrs K

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm pretty much at a loss. I think I see a few pin feathers growing back but not many. That means all the original feather is gone, no pieces of shaft left behind, at least in those. Fast and slow molting is about how fast the feathers fall out, that's controlled by genetics. It's not about how fast they grow back though that might be controlled by genetics too. It's the fast molters that typically get bare. Often it is really hard to tell a slow molters is molting just by looking at her. There are always exceptions to any of this stuff though. How long has she been bare?

The spots not coming back isn't that strange to me. I've seen a hen really change feather appearance after her first adult molt. She went from being mottled to full blown exchequer. From what I've read that's not that unusual but 'll admit mine don't really change after a molt. Pretty rare.

Her being skinny isn't that much of a worry either. Feathers make a lot of them look a lot bigger than they actually are. When you remove the feathers some of them are downright tiny.

I don't know what is going on with her. She appears to have feathered out fine after her juvenile molts, it's after her adult molt she is slow. And she has never laid an egg. This is not affecting the other chickens. If it has been months that she is bare, I think there is something wrong with this hen. Not wrong enough to kill her or make her unhealthy but enough to make her unthrifty.

If you plan to keep her I think I'd do as Mrs K suggested. Leave her be and see what happens.