I've heard of self-basting chickens, but self plucking???

[MadDanEccles]

Hi all.

I've been away for the last week and left my four bantams with loads of water/feed and the garden to free range around. They survived ok, but two of them are noticeably changed. They are all Wyandottes and around 18 months old. There's a Colombian, one Gold-laced and two Partridges.

The last time I posted here, a few months ago, the Colombian had an infected vent. She's now totally recovered and looks to be in the peak of health. Her feathers were a bit tatty after being treated and she went through a process of plucking her feathers a lot and letting them re-grow, which I suspected was due to her being bathed and treated with ointments, antiseptics etc. She's ok now and is, I suspect, "top hen" but I don't think she's laid an egg since I've had her :-(

At around the same time as this treatment the two Partidges went totally broody and stayed so for eight weeks up until 2 weeks ago :-( They seem to be best mates and do everything together. This left me with only one egg, every other day, from the remaining bird and then that dried up as well, even though she wasn't broody. It's embarrassing having to buy eggs in when you have 4 birds of your own.

Anyway, just before we went away, the broody ones stopped being broody and the Gold-laced one started laying again. Yay! We expected to come back to at least 4 eggs, maybe more, but what we got was zero eggs and the broody pair looking like they've been plucking themselves senseless in the same way as the Colombian did. Instead of the usual good condition black/brown tone, there's what looks like down poking through everywhere, lots of stumpy new feathers coming through that have yet to "fray" and a couple of pillows worth of old feathers in the bottom of the coop.

So, question time...

1) Are they ok?
2) Is this plucking malarkey something to do with the end of being broody or another regular process?
3) Is there any hope of me getting them back to regular laying?

They are fed on Marriages layers pellets, plus whatever they can scavenge around the garden. There's plenty of grit available and there's a liquid supplement in their water, the name of which escapes me right now. The coop was cleaned and sprayed 10 days ago and there's diatom all around the coop.

Any comments?

TIA!

 

[farmin'chick]

You don't say how old they are -- they may be moulting...dropping all their old feathers and growing new ones. They won't lay again (usually) until they have all their new feathers in. Feathers are made of protein, so it takes all their "energy" to grow feathers. Later they should lay again...

 

[Matt A NC]

They are molting. They will replace most or all of their feathers. They aren't plucking them this time, this is a natural process. The old feathers 'release' and fall out as the new pin starts. As the pin sleds the covering it will open up into a beautiful new feather.

Most birds do not lay during molt and a molt can take 6-12 weeks. Extra Protein can help the birds get along a tad quicker. Black Oil Sunflower seeds are good for nice and strong feathers.

Matt

 

[MadDanEccles]

Yow! Eight weeks broody and then anything up to 3 months renewing plumage??? That's most of the summer and therefore the peak laying period gone in a flash

How often would I expect each bird to do this?

I've only had 4 eggs in the last 10 weeks

Looks like it's next stop the feed merchants for some sunflower seeds

 

[Matt A NC]

Each bird should molt every Fall.

Matt