I have a barred rock hen almost a year old. I was noticing that she was starting to look a little raggedy in the feather department. We until recently had 9 hens and 2 roosters until culling one of the roosters after finding that a couple of our hens were suffering from too much attention and getting feather loss on the backs of their necks and backs. We initially thought that she was one of the ones suffering from this. However, after a little time we are noticing that she has much more severe feather loss and it is continuing. She is losing a lot around her head and neck and has a little bald spot on one side of her neck. She doesn't really seem to be losing anything on her back, but has some bald spots around her but under her vent, and on her stomach between her legs. We cannot find any evidence of mites or lice on her or in the coop, and none of our other hens are going through what she is going through. She is otherwise behaving normal. Regular activity and energy level, appetite, poop, interaction with the flock. You can see when she flaps her wings or shakes herself feathers just fly off of her. Our only other thought was that she was molting, But everything that I've read about molting says that it starts at the head and neck down to bare skin and works its way down the back, and that it happens in the fall after they are a year old? For right now, until we can figure out what is going on with her, we have her in a separation cage inside the run with the rest of the flock. She is being given water with electrolytes, some extra protein and calcium by way of yogurt and boiled eggs. We let her out in the evening and let her go into the coop with the rest of the flock to roost at night. Could she be molting? Does it sometimes follow a different pattern or start at different times of the year and different ages? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
