Is my hen moulting?

kaylabee

Hatching
Mar 28, 2017
7
0
7
Is my hen moulting? She's looked like this for a couple of weeks now, but I've never noticed a hen looking like this, so I'm not sure why her feathers look like this..








700
 
It's not a great photos but looks like it might be damage from an over amorous cockerel. Is it mostly on her shoulders and back of her neck and tail area?
What ratio of male to females do you have? If it is mating damage, she will benefit from a chicken saddle to prevent the skin getting broken as well as further damage to her feathers. They can be home made or bought. If you do a search on chicken saddles or chicken aprons, you should come up with plenty of hits that will point you in the right direction.

Regards

Barbara
 

Yes, it's not a great photo, it's mainly her tail area. I have two roosters and 7 hens. She's just been like this a while, and I haven't seen anyone pecking her, she's the feisty one, she pecks everyone else. Lol
 
Even more likely mating damage if you have two roosters.... 7:2 is not a good ratio, especially when they are young and inexperienced. That will almost certainly make for a stressed flock as well as feather damaged, maybe even injured. What often happens with multiple male birds in a flock is that they will repeatedly mate the same female one often the other, sometimes both on top of her at once, or they will try to grab hold of her to mate her and she loses feathers in her effort to get away.
In my opinion, you could do your girls a big favour by getting rid of at least one of those boys.
 
Welcome to BYC!

Definitely need a better photo of you what you think is 'damage'.
I put your pic in photo program and lightened it, I don't see anything too alarming.
How old is the bird and what is your climate/location?

Male to female ratio is not ideal, but hard to say if it's problem or not....depends on behaviors, not numbers.
 
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