Molting or Mites?

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flinter536

flinter536

Hatching
Apr 3, 2015
7
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I have seven hens and a rooster. It is a mixed flock. (one Buff Orpington hen, one Rhode Island Red hen, one Rhode Island/Buff Orpington cross hen, four Black Majorca hens and a Rhode Island Red rooster)

The hens are all 13 months old. They have been averaging 6.2 eggs a day for the past six months. Now, they are losing feathers and their egg production has finally slowed to about 4.6 eggs a day. One of the Majorcas has lost all of her feathers on the back near the base of the tail. The bare spot is about three inches in diameter.

A friend tells me that he thinks they have mites. He suggested putting ashes from my fireplace into their run so that they can dust with them.

What do you think?
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

This actually sounds like what a hen looks like when a rooster has been breeding with her. Hens will often lose their feathers at the base of their tails due to the rooster's spurs.

So you may try placing a saddle on her until the feathers can grow back. Here is a link on them http://www.hensaver.com/index.html

Good luck to you and welcome to the flock!
 
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
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Usually with mites you can see black spots all over the skin in the bare areas. You can also go out after dark and shine a flash light on the birds. Many times you can see mites crawling on the birds.

Molting usually starts at the neck and head and the pin feathers along these areas tell you they are molting.

Stop by this link on mites. It will help you diagnose this and treat them if they do have mites....https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/mites-chicken-pests-how-to-protect-your-chickens-from-mites

If you do have mites, you will need to strip down your coop of all bedding, nest boxes too and use some sort of poultry spray to rid it of mites. Get the roost bar really good especially underneath where the mites hide during the day and lay eggs. Replace all bedding and repeat this every 7 days. As for the birds, you can use poultry sprays or even DE on them as well. Repeat 2 times a week for several weeks. Once you get a handle of this, you can use DE all over the coop floor, nest boxes to help prevent them in the future.

Good luck and I sure hope you don't have mites!
 
This is the hen that has me concerned. She was like this before we got the rooster, just not as bad.

What do you think?

 
flinter536 said:
This is the hen that has me concerned. She was like this before we got the rooster, just not as bad.

What do you think?

Click to expand...

It looks like the rooster has made it worse. She might just have lost some feathers back there or the other chickens might have been pecking at her which is what started it.
 

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