I have been having trouble with my chickens picking feathers for the longest time. I have tried EVERYTHING!!! I've tried pine tar, more protein, free ranging even leaving the door open on the chicken for an entire week so they wouldn't be cooped out and while i have seen marginal sucess, it has not totally stopped. Recently my chickens began molting and one of them regrew all her tail feathers while the others are bare butted. I am now wondering if this is the devil chicken in my flock or if she's just smart enough to not get her feathers pulled. What are your opinions?
If I had the problems you are having I would invest in some pinless peepers. I am beginning to suspect I may have some feather picking going on in my flock. I will definitely invest the money in pinless peepers before I ever use pine tar again. Is pine tar effective? Yes. Is it a blooming disaster to work with? Undoubtedly. Is it worth looking into other options? Resounding YES! Good luck with yours. Wish me luck with mine.
I had this problem with some bald butt girls I got from the feed store. Broke them of it by doing four things.. One, sprayed their butts with blucote.. Seems if they can see the blood they can't resist.. 2. Lots of protein, black soldier fly larvae, and mixed some high protein turkey grower with their feed. 3. also let them start free ranging. 4. Finally I trimmed their beaks. I'm not talking about that nasty permanent beak trimming stuff, just used a little nail clipper and took off the curvy point. Didn't even reach the quick. Beaks actually grew back faster than the feathers. I'm not sure what worked best, but none of them do it anymore. I feel like it had to do mostly with the protein though, as the last one to stop was my smallest pullet.
