Missing feathers

[Melody102]

So I am helping someone who has just gotten chickens. He has never had chickens before but I have a bit of experience with quail. It’s been about 1 week now (he bought them fully matured) and of the 15 chickens I’d say about 8 have feathers missing at their tails or back. I’ve read this can be from an overly active rooster but he doesn’t have a rooster.
Could this be just from the ladies getting used to each other and plucking out some feather to show who’s boss? (with quail you have to be super slow cause they can be vicious if they don’t like each other!)
Should I introduce chicken saddles to prevent this or would this make the chickens more likely to pick on the ones with different colours?
Is there anything else I could check to make sure it’s not some sort of disease going around?
The Chickens are still very skittish and have a large area with a steep hill to escape any catching attempts, advice is appreciated on how to catch them!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Catch them on the roost at dusk. They are easy to catch then and calm.
Saddles are usually used to prevent rooster mating damage.
What is the protein percentage of the feed?
Sometimes low protein/essential amino acids can lead to feather picking and eventually to cannibalism. I've had that happen when I dropped the protein of maturing chickens.

 

[Melody102]

Thank you for the information! I’ll check out the percentage of protein tomorrow when I go see them. Makes sense to grab them at dusk. I’ve attached a photo of the back of one of the ones I picked up today after I posted this, I couldn’t find any mites or lice or other crawly things so I think we are safe on that.
Still looks pretty bad though, anything I can do to help them out until feathers grow back?

And I’ve also attached a photo of the one that looks absolutely terrible. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, I can’t catch her at all so the photo was taken through the fence. I’ll try the roost idea tomorrow night. I believe (fingers crossed) that the wing damage is from when some of the birds escaped by pushing under the fencing and it pulled out some feathers but it still doesn’t explain the rest. It’s upsetting to see them this injured. Any ideas?

Catch them on the roost at dusk. They are easy to catch then and calm.
Saddles are usually used to prevent rooster mating damage.
What is the protein percentage of the feed?
Sometimes low protein/essential amino acids can lead to feather picking and eventually to cannibalism. I've had that happen when I dropped the protein of maturing chickens.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Do you know where these birds come from? This looks like a large amount of picking damage, like you'd see from birds in crowded or dirty conditions, or factory farm set ups.