Missing Feathers - butt to breast

[GMa1956]

HELP one if my babies is going bald from the "bottom up"! My 5 hens are almost a year old. We live outside of Portland, Oregon. Today I found that one of my hens has no feathers from under her butt clear up to her breast bone. The skin has little scabs nearer to her butt and it almost looks like the skin has peeled. There is no rooster and we have always thought that this hen does not lay eggs. She's the only one I have never caught on a nest. So how do I proceed? Treat for mites? Wash her and apply antibiotic salve?? Should I even get her wet? A couple of the other girls are missing a couple of feathers here and there which I thought would be molting, but nothing extreme, no baldness like this one. Poor Donna Jean, can someone help her?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Have you noticed any sort of broody behavior in her of late? Some hens will pluck their underside bald when they are broody to allow for the most/best contact between her body and the eggs she intends to hatch.
Perhaps you can get a photo of your girl and share it here so we can see what you are seeing?

 

[GMa1956]

I have to wait till tomorrow to take a picture. Thanks for your comment! If it's true that she has never layed, could she be "upset" and trying to lay? And, just because I am a newbie, exactly what does "broody" mean?

 

[seminolewind]

Broody means the hen wants to sit on eggs. When hens sit on eggs, they rip all their feathers out underneath so the egg has contact with their skin.