Losing feathers???

[alleesmama]

My daughter has a pair of red golden pheasants. She got them late last summer. They have done quite well all winter and have recently started laying. I'm not sure how to tell if they're sitting because every time we go in their pen, they run. Any tips? Also, our rooster has lost all his tail feathers and our hen is missing a few on her head? Any ideas what this could be from? Any help would be great!

 

[BYCforlife]

Hello!

! You may have heard of "pecking order" and "hen pecked", and that is most likely what is happening. My rooster is missing all of the feathers at the base of his tail, and a few of my hens are missing all of their back feathers. You may notice that one chicken is being pecked, or pecking another.

If you want to try to stop this, I would reccomend you find out who is doing the pecking, and as soon as she/he does it, catch it if possible and seperate it from the others. It worked with my chickens when they got too violent.

 

[alleesmama]

We just have 1 of each. It could be the hen pecking him and the rooster pecking her. I wondered about mites, maybe?? I don't really know how to tell.