Mites or molting?

[MPio13]

Been noticing a ton of feathers around the coop the past week. Today far more than before. Found one of my speckled Sussex hens with a few bare spots. Mainly, on her butt, but also a spot at the front of a wing and some ruffled, thinned out areas on the neck. Also noticed that the other hens will sneak up behind her and peck at it. None the others seem to have any feather loss or anything wrong. Some pictures I took today:

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

How old is she? Generally the molt starts at the front end. I do see new feathers growing in. If you have seen feather picking than that's what it looks like.

I would up you protein content of your feed, and find things to keep your chickens busy.

Feather picking can turn into cannibalism.

 

[azygous]

I'm voting for molt. Your photos could be of my Speckled Sussex Geobett. She began molt a couple weeks ago on her butt area, and it looked just like the butt photo of your girl.

Now, her head and neck are completely stripped of old feathers. All she has is the "pin cushion" look from beak to shoulders. She looks pretty strange, indeed.

 

[Isaac 0]

Looks like molting.I have few that started with bare butts.

 

[MPio13]

Thanks for the responses. I'll try to get in there and get my hands on her to take a closer look sometime. I do give them kalmbauch "flock block" like twice a week to keep them occupied and let them free range as much as possible.

Is it correct to say, that if it were mites, other hens would likely be affected too?

 

[Isaac 0]

Thanks for the responses. I'll try to get in there and get my hands on her to take a closer look sometime. I do give them kalmbauch "flock block" like twice a week to keep them occupied and let them free range as much as possible.

Is it correct to say, that if it were mites, other hens would likely be affected too?

More than likely.Mites transmit very easily.Wont hurt to check.

 

[azygous]

If you have mites, you will see a red "rash" on the skin under the feathers. If you have a lice problem, you should see them crawling around on the skin around the vent.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

I really don't want to hijack someone else's thread, but I was going to make a carbon copy of this thread.

I have a NH red that stopped laying about 5 days ago and began losing quite a few feathers beginning a few days ago. She looks a bit pale and "tired", but she has been moving around and eating. She has a very small area on each side of her neck that is going bare and she is losing almost all of her vent/butt feathers. She occasionally has runny poop, but last night all of the poop on the poop board looked OK. I don't really notice any new feathers coming in yet.

Through my internet research I've seen mixed opinions as to where the molting begins. Half seem to say head to tail and half say it can begin anywhere. I did have a bird die in the spring of cocci and she lost a lot of feathers in her neck and vent, but she has terrible runs right up until she passed...even while on a severe outbreak dose of Corid.

This would be my first adult molting season since I got them as chicks last May. So I'm not really sure if I should lean toward sickness or molt. I have another buff orpington hen that hasn't laid in 3-5 days either.

We have a lot of rain coming in tomorrow with the remnants of Nate. Is it a bad idea to treat with Corid while a bird may be molting? Maybe give it a couple of more days to see if she starts losing wing or back feathers?

 

[MPio13]

Update: now I believe it is, in fact, mites. My Rhode Island Reds are easier to spot it; looks like all 7 of my birds need to be treated.

 

[azygous]

Oh, those sure do looks like mites. You will need to treat your coop, too, and maybe the run. Permethrin works okay and it's not expensive, but I've really become a huge fan of a product called Elector PSP. It's spinosad. It works by enzymatic action, biologically. It may be a bit pricey, but it's highly concentrated and a little goes a long way.

I mix up a deep warm dipping tub and dip the entire chicken. It also kills scaly leg mites better than anything I've ever used. For small lice infestations, I just use a squirt bottle, and one treatment has lasted a year.

You can mix it into a garden sprayer and hose down your coop with it, getting into all the cracks and crevices where the mites hang out.

Your poor chickens have had a bad time with the cocci and molt and now mites. Molt really saps a chicken's reserves and some of mine act downright ill. I try to give them high protein treats several times a week - mackerel or eggs. And molt can be widely different from chicken to chicken. I've had roosters molt so discretely I was hardly aware they were molting. I've had hens molt so heavily, they barely had any feathers on their bodies. I've had a hen take a year to molt, others six months, and others are done in a month. I just had one hen completely skip her first scheduled molt, go through all last winter with feathers so shabby they barely covered her, then she molted finally at the beginning of summer. Still have no explanation for it.