I think I found a miracle cure for feather picking

[sunflour]

What a sad tale, Lacy! Have you and I just brought to light the possibility for others to see that creating a flock of one is an option? It sounds like your boy has an infection in his frostbitten wattles. If your decision is to keep him around, perhaps antibiotics could help him heal.

Flo is her won flock and she appears to be fine with that. Her lameness is what caused the others to turn on her and bully her so badly, but I just didn't realize it at the time. Now she feels still part of the flock, but she's happy not having to be subjected to their bullying. She's become very relaxed inside her secure enclosure. There's one EE who tries her best to goad Flo into fighting through the fence, but Flo just stares at her, unruffled.

At night, Flo waits for me to come get her and carry her into her pet crate in the garage. She's content to sleep there and not have to compete at roosting time. So she's been completely removed from the stressful aspects of being in the flock with all the benefits. I tried making a house chicken out of her a week ago, but she became heat-stressed. She's happier out with the flock as long as she's protected from them. I'm waiting with high expectations to see if her reduced stress level will allow her to lay eggs this year. I installed a dog crate in her enclosure with a nest in it in case she should feel the urge. I miss her olive eggs.

Good luck with Flo…bet she does lay again.

 

[sunflour]

I'd like to remind the followers of this thread that feather picking often wanes or completely abates during molt. You'd think it would be just the opposite. But I've been battling this scourge for five years, and that seems to be the pattern.

Picking then resumes in early spring, as a rule. So be alert for it if it's managed to drop off the radar in your flock.

Oh no! My small flock all have wonderful fluffy butts again, and very little picking going on. Sure hope they don't start back up in the Spring. But thanks for the heads up to keep on the watch.

 

[Gldnrose]

I'd like to remind the followers of this thread that feather picking often wanes or completely abates during molt. You'd think it would be just the opposite. But I've been battling this scourge for five years, and that seems to be the pattern.

Picking then resumes in early spring, as a rule. So be alert for it if it's managed to drop off the radar in your flock.

Flo seems to have adjusted to losing Joycie better than me. But her bursitis has been crippling her so badly on sub-freezing days, she can't even manage to stand up. She doesn't eat enough because she can't get to the food and water, so I bring her inside the garage where it's at least above freezing, and she does better. But she refuses to eat unless I feed her or take her back out to the run with the others. I was thinking of euthanizing her the other day, but she's rebounded since.

Flo's feather picking days are over because she no longer truly is with the flock, and she's so crippled, she can no longer chase after feathers. How the mighty have fallen.

I was thinking of taking off the peepers after winter when they can free range again, hoping that it has been long enough to maybe have curbed her enthusiasm for picking. Should I just leave them on permanently? Everything has been so peaceful since she has had them on and my chickens actually look like chickens again, I would hate to disrupt the harmony again.

It's always a sad state of affairs to watch the decline of once prominent members of the flock!

I have a male (off topic as no feather eating involved) who was top of his little group. Inside of one week, this was his reality: top of the flock, challenged and beaten by an underling, moved to a new coop with more room, regained top position, severe cold swept in and he got pretty bad frostbite on his wattles from my watering situation (which has since been changed) and finally to the bottom of the pecking order, having been beaten up and driven from the coop. I found him standing outside in the freezing cold wind. Poor boy!

So now he's his own flock member and I haven't yet decided if he will be culled or not. His wattles still seem to be in pretty sad shape and I'm trying to see him through this. I need to compare him to his full brother so I can decide whether or not to do the deed. He's such a pretty boy, but so is his brother, who has not suffered any frostbite at all. Now before anybody jumps off the deep end... no, I wouldn't cull him for getting frostbite. Two other boys got it too and I've given them all the same care. The other boys are both almost back to normal. This guy though... I don't know if he has gotten an infection in the wattles or not. One of them is quite round and hard and blackened. The other is not quite as big but it is blackened too and also hard... so... he needs to recover... or else.

ouch. I hope he heals soon. Poor guy.

Oh no! My small flock all have wonderful fluffy butts again, and very little picking going on. Sure hope they don't start back up in the Spring. But thanks for the heads up to keep on the watch.

Ditto! I've seen enough bare chicken butts for awhile. Would like to see feathered butts free ranging. "why do your chickens have bare bottoms?" is a question I'm tired of answering, lol.

 

[sunflour]

On a lighter note: 2 of my hens have doodie butts, bet no one picks those….

Last year one had the same and I planned to wait til warm weather to bathe her…could not do the pull it off with feathers thing. But by spring she had finally cleaned it with her baths.

 

[Cluckies]

My major picker cluck cluck is doing it even with the peepers on now. she doesn't seem to get quite as much feathers so I leave the peepers on, but it is sooo frustrating. "No" therapy only works when i'm out there, and then only half the time I may have to cull her,(but I don't think I can) whenever she is out of the coop, the other girls calm down and all get along. When she is out there they are always on edge, she is like a shark. I'm torn as she is a sweetheart to me, just a pain in the back to everyone else.

 

[Lacy Blues]

"why do your chickens have bare bottoms?" is a question I'm tired of answering, lol.

Tell them that you took their drawers to wash and they're out on the clothesline drying in the sun. They should be just about dry now. Then watch to see if they look for them!

 

[azygous]

Tell them that you took their drawers to wash and they're out on the clothesline drying in the sun. They should be just about dry now. Then watch to see if they look for them!

Some people will believe anything you tell them if you say it with sober authority.

I'd like to address pinless peepers. First of all, if your picker has been wearing them for many months, try removing them. She may be fine without them, and it would do her good to be without the encumbrance for a respite.

Little Cluckies is a hard case like Flo (used to be). Flo managed to adjust, as did three of my other hard cases, to the peepers and pick feathers as if they weren't wearing them at all. That's when I tried the bumpa-bits, but they learned to pick feathers with those devices, too. Bumpa-bits fasten in the beak holes, but fit in between the upper and lower beak to prevent full closure.

When I have a serial picker(s) that persist even with beak implements, I then separate them from the main flock out of sheer preservation of the victims. This is the point at which other people cull or re-home.

I've also gone the route of protecting the victims with saddle aprons that I've designed and sewn to cover the target areas. However, many chickens outright refuse to wear them. Joycie, Flo's main victim, would remove her cover every single time. The one my neighbor crocheted for her, she would unravel with her beak. One time I found her quite tangled up in yarn she had dismantled. Apart from it being funny, it was also alarming due to the fact she could have strangled.

Throughout this thread I've warned there is no lasting solution to feather picking. If you find it impossible to cull, all you can do is keep rotating the different approaches, and hope that at some point, the picker will decide to hang up their career and retire as Flo appears to have done.

 

[Gldnrose]

My major picker cluck cluck is doing it even with the peepers on now. she doesn't seem to get quite as much feathers so I leave the peepers on, but it is sooo frustrating. "No" therapy only works when i'm out there, and then only half the time I may have to cull her,(but I don't think I can) whenever she is out of the coop, the other girls calm down and all get along. When she is out there they are always on edge, she is like a shark. I'm torn as she is a sweetheart to me, just a pain in the back to everyone else.

Bitty, my picker, sounds the same, except the peepers seem to be working (fingers crossed). She's like a shark too, before peepers. I have a sneaking suspicion though that as soon as I take them off she will be at it again. I don't think I can cull her either. But I do understand why people do it. There is something to be said for having harmony in the flock!

Tell them that you took their drawers to wash and they're out on the clothesline drying in the sun. They should be just about dry now. Then watch to see if they look for them!

LOL

I do know some that would actually look too.

Some people will believe anything you tell them if you say it with sober authority.

I'd like to address pinless peepers. First of all, if your picker has been wearing them for many months, try removing them. She may be fine without them, and it would do her good to be without the encumbrance for a respite.

Little Cluckies is a hard case like Flo (used to be). Flo managed to adjust, as did three of my other hard cases, to the peepers and pick feathers as if they weren't wearing them at all. That's when I tried the bumpa-bits, but they learned to pick feathers with those devices, too. Bumpa-bits fasten in the beak holes, but fit in between the upper and lower beak to prevent full closure.

When I have a serial picker(s) that persist even with beak implements, I then separate them from the main flock out of sheer preservation of the victims. This is the point at which other people cull or re-home.

I've also gone the route of protecting the victims with saddle aprons that I've designed and sewn to cover the target areas. However, many chickens outright refuse to wear them. Joycie, Flo's main victim, would remove her cover every single time. The one my neighbor crocheted for her, she would unravel with her beak. One time I found her quite tangled up in yarn she had dismantled. Apart from it being funny, it was also alarming due to the fact she could have strangled.

Throughout this thread I've warned there is no lasting solution to feather picking. If you find it impossible to cull, all you can do is keep rotating the different approaches, and hope that at some point, the picker will decide to hang up their career and retire as Flo appears to have done.

I am going to take them off and see how it goes, but I am going to wait until my molting hen gets her feathers in. I fear that those pin feathers will be way to much of a temptation. I never tried aprons, Bitty just would move to the next available spot. I did bluekote and she just targeted a different area. My one poor girl was getting picked bald because she was doing just that. I would have to cover every square inch of them, lol.

 

[azygous]

I just had a sudden flash of chickens roaming the run encased in umbrella style covers with just their heads showing. Now that would be a solution to the problem, wouldn't it?

 

[Cluckies]

I just had a sudden flash of chickens roaming the run encased in umbrella style covers with just their heads showing. Now that would be a solution to the problem, wouldn't it?

Hahaha! It would!

Yes, cluck-cluck is a hard case. I've also done the saddles and may put them back on in a two pronged approach. I took cluck clucks peepers off a couple weeks ago for two days, that is when the picking started back up again, and now just continues. I also put peepers on Fi as my molting chicken Mother was too much of a temptation as well. Also when I took cluck cluck's peepers off, she went after Fi's comb as it was somewhat frostbite. I just don't know what to do about her...