I think I found a miracle cure for feather picking

[Lacy Blues]

http://www.nutrecocanada.com/docs/shur-gain---specialty/are-your-birds-hen-pecked-.pdf

Just thought I would share this link. It has a little information regarding some diversions for your birds. Other than that, I think everything in it is already known. It's a short read so thought I would share.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Within that article is some information I hadn't previously known. Phosphorous is something found lacking in feather pickers. Phosphorus is very important, apparently, for the use of the animal sourced proteins in your birds' diets. Probably the most easily obtainable source of phosphorous is manure. If you can acquire some horse manure or cow manure (personally I'd rather have horse) and spread it in your birds' yards, hopefully that would meet the requirements?

I'm going to give it a try.

 

[azygous]

Thanks, Lacy, that was an informative article.

I do have a nice big pile of horse manure! So far, in their brief periods of free-ranging, the flock hasn't discovered the compost pile. Right now, it's covered in a foot of snow, but I think I can direct their attention to it in a few days!

As for Flo, she's devolved to being completely segregated from the others. Even though she has been in jail, her presence has caused several of the others to begin fighting with each other, as well as sparing with Flo through the jail fence.

Since I removed her and kept her out of sight, there have been no more fights. Sadly, Flo is a hen who is completely without a flock. But I can spread some manure around the area where she spends time outside.

 

[Crazie Eddie]

I'm a lurker and a newbie here, and have followed the thread as if it were a good mystery novel. I am a novice chicken owner and according to my friend and mentor, she's never seen most of the problems I've enjoyed over the last 6 months! And I am as besotted with my problem hen, Ginny as Flo's owner seems to be...

My rooster, Bubba, has a bald neck and is missing feathers in other parts too. Ginny's, the one who is mostly intact, fellow hens is suffering from a few missing feathers and I've seen all three of the hens in with Bubba picking feathers from him and each other from time to time. Before it was apparent I had a problem, I was amused to see Bubba finding feathers and calling the girls over for a snack. I have tried most of the things you've all recommended, and am about to go in search of horse manure and beets.

One thing that I haven't seen suggested, and only thought of when I gazed up at my feather collection (from before the picking started I was collecting them to make earrings) is feeding them, well, feathers. If that's what they are craving, why not make a pinata of feathers for them - or would that just encourage them?

Thank you for all the work you have already done which as saved me a ton of time and money - and it's nice to know I'm not alone in this...

 

[Lacy Blues]

Hi Eddie! Welcome!

I don't know if I would make a pinata of feathers. It would scare me to death. However, if you could find a way to chop them up so they didn't look so much like feathers, maybe you could add them to their feed? That's an idea. Hadn't thought of it before... thanks. I'll be thinking about it now.

 

[azygous]

Well, feeding feathers to feather pickers isn't all that far-fetched. We dry and grind up egg shells to feed back to laying hens, and the reason we go to the trouble of preparing them that way, is so they won't start getting the bright idea that eating eggs is okay. So "processing" discarded feathers and feeding them back to the chickens is an option we could try.

The feathers they seem to find edible are the downy ones that are lying about on the ground. They tend to ignore the hard feathers.

Welcome, Eddie, and thanks for the idea!

I've been writing "Flo" updates for another thread on quarreling hens, and I want to include an update here.

Flo is now a flock of one hen, herself, and she's apparently perfectly okay with it. She free-ranges by herself and seems to enjoy it, and only occasionally does she stand on the outside of the full-length windows to the run and taunt the others inside, pecking at any she has succeeded in enraging through the glass.

She's a wicked, wicked lass, that one!

 

[Crazie Eddie]

...

She's a wicked, wicked lass, that one!

Maybe we should get Flo and Ginny together for a play-date...

Mine do eat some of the bigger feathers, and I expect to have to learn the Heimlich maneuver for chickens next...

I'm going to see if my friend with the non-picking hens has feathers laying around, and collect some and experiment. As it seems a natural behavior to collect them from the ground, maybe it would be OK to scatter them around...?

 

[Crazie Eddie]

And knowing nothing about the chemistry, what about hair? Both feathers and hair are made of keratin... I have a very fuzzy dog and there's a groomer at the kennel across the way...

 

[azygous]

I'd caution against just scattering the feathers around for them to eat. The hens might eat the ones on the ground, get excited about more and decide to move on the ones still attached to their owners. It would be safer to camouflage them in something else they eat. What that would be, I can't think of it just right now.

Maybe forget the feather-feeding and conjure up the main constituents of feathers and feed those, such as protein and keratin. Come to think of it, bugs are made of those things, and free-ranging chickens should get plenty. It's probably why free-range chickens are less apt to feather pick.

 

[chickiemomy]

And knowing nothing about the chemistry, what about hair? Both feathers and hair are made of keratin... I have a very fuzzy dog and there's a groomer at the kennel across the way...

I'm a newbie to chooks - so understand where this comes from -- but I would worry about impacted crops & gizzards with fur & with feathers, unless the feathers were truly ground pretty well.

If the intent is to add protein, seems like there are safer ways to do that - calf manna, cat food, etc.

Seems like for Flo, and some of these hens, the issue is behavior, not nutrition??