Hens with terrible bareback, is it Disease? Severe Overmating?

[insertwittychickenname]

So my father owns a large amount of chickens, he is a rather old man so it has become my job to take care of these chickens, which is extremely hard to do as a full time college student who studies an hour away most days. A few of our wyandottes have been losing their back feathers over the past month, at first I thought it may be them moulting early (they are close to 10 months old, which I thought was rather strange for them to be moulting this early if that was the case.) so I decided to spray them with Vetericyn Plus Poultry Care in hopes that maybe it would help them, but this week upon arriving home, I've noticed how severe most of these hens have gotten, their backs are raw and red and look painful! I was extremly worried over them, so today I caught as many of them as I could and covered their raw back area with Rooster Booster Pick No More lotion, hoping it might stop other hens from pecking the area.
I also noticed today that some of our other hens of different breeds are starting to lose their back feathers as well, just not as fast as these girls did, could this be an issue caused by our rooster overbreeding? He walks up to the hens and pulls out some of their feathers when I'm up there, could this be his doing?
I'm begging for help on this issue, I've expanded their pen and bought vitamins and that I've put in their water in case it was a nutrition issue like some have suggested, but nothing had been helping and I'm trying my best with the little information I know to help these hens, so please any information would be helpful!

Below are the pictures of the worst hen in the bunch, this was before I put the lotion on her! I also added a picture of one of our other hen who is slowly losing her feathers as well!

 

[sourland]

It may be a combination of over breeding and feather plucking. It does sound as if the rooster may be feather plucking from your statement. Any hens that are in excellent feather may also be guilty. Do an on site search on Pin Less Peepers.

 

[Silkies rule Forever]

The rooster is breeding so much that every time he mounts them he is just making it more raw! Or it could be the hens pecking each other, they tend to like the taste of bloodi have a bald headed hen right now that was bleeding like crazy from another hen pecking heri put some pick no more on her and they tried to peck her and then tasted the stuff and never touched her again!! They also make “saddles” for the hens for that reason!

 

[insertwittychickenname]

The rooster is breeding so much that every time he mounts them he is just making it more raw! Or it could be the hens pecking each other, they tend to like the taste of bloodi have a bald headed hen right now that was bleeding like crazy from another hen pecking heri put some pick no more on her and they tried to peck her and then tasted the stuff and never touched her again!! They also make “saddles” for the hens for that reason!

I'm definitely glad to hear that pick no more stuff works for other people! And i expected that may be the issue from the rooster, we have a good amount of hens and he has always been rather aggressive with them, we are coming to the point were we may need to get rid of him due to his aggression, and I will definitely be looking into getting the hens some saddles!

 

[insertwittychickenname]

It may be a combination of over breeding and feather plucking. It does sound as if the rooster may be feather plucking from your statement. Any hens that are in excellent feather may also be guilty. Do an on site search on Pin Less Peepers.

I will definitely look into them! I'll be keeping a close eye on our nicer looking hens to see if they are in on our rooster's troublemaking with the feather plucking!

 

[Silkies rule Forever]

 

[Isaiah53]

I had several with that problem. Then I looked closely and noticed dirty bottoms. I inspected their bottoms VERY closely and discovered there was lice eggs everywhere and they had been plucking their own feathers. Not saying this is your problem, but it looked very much like your images. I would hold one under your arms, head backwards and look for lice or mites (difficult to see mites, but lice eggs are VERY obvious once you see them). See this image for what it looks like up close.

 

[Isaiah53]

View attachment 1528099 I had several with that problem. Then I looked closely and noticed dirty bottoms. I inspected their bottoms VERY closely and discovered there was lice eggs everywhere and they had been plucking their own feathers. Not saying this is your problem, but it looked very much like your images. I would hold one under your arms, head backwards and look for lice or mites (difficult to see mites, but lice eggs are VERY obvious once you see them). See this image for what it looks like up close.

Oh and some I looked at had no dirty bottom, and very few feathers missing.

 

[insertwittychickenname]

View attachment 1528099 I had several with that problem. Then I looked closely and noticed dirty bottoms. I inspected their bottoms VERY closely and discovered there was lice eggs everywhere and they had been plucking their own feathers. Not saying this is your problem, but it looked very much like your images. I would hold one under your arms, head backwards and look for lice or mites (difficult to see mites, but lice eggs are VERY obvious once you see them). See this image for what it looks like up close.

Thank you for the comment! I will definitely give them a thorough checking first thing in the morning! We thought that might be an issue, I've dusted their pen and coop a few times in worry for lice and mite issues, but I will check them out!

 

[Isaiah53]

Thank you for the comment! I will definitely give them a thorough checking first thing in the morning! We thought that might be an issue, I've dusted their pen and coop a few times in worry for lice and mite issues, but I will check them out!

So, if you do have lice, it may be difficult to see them on your birds. I actually never saw any on mine, just tons of eggs like the image above. What I did was purchase a spray for cracks and crevices called Doktor Doom Residual Spray, it has .5% permethrin in it and I sprayed the whole coop, perches and every crack and crevice I could find. Where I live, it's the ONLY product I can find and once sprayed this will kill pretty well anything for up to two months. I see in the USA there are many other residual sprays (Meyers hatcheries had one I just saw that lasts 30 days). Then I gave them Ivermectin. Two doses, 10 days apart. They were already getting perky after the first dose. Some use a drop on, but I have 80+ birds, so I used the injectable in my water. 1% injectable at 3mls to 1 gallon of water. Repeat 10 days later and if necessary a 3rd time. Then I used a dusting powder (Carbaryl and permethrin as I ran out of carbaryl) on the birds with the worst of it and dusted the floor as well. It's been almost 3 weeks and their feathers are starting to come back. I may do one more treatment, then since I'm seeing yellow droppings, I will probably do a fenbendazole treatment for more worms. This was all approved by my local vet.

Best of luck, and I hope it isn't anything too serious.



Edited to add: I also plucked out the worst of the feathers with eggs on it. They'll grow back, but battling lice/mites is not something I want to do for the next year!