Molting or something else?

[Micmac1234]

Two things you can try. One is to peck her firmly on her back when you catch her in the act. Or sit out there with a squirt gun and soak her. This may work if you can be consistent and do it often.

The more practical method is pinless peepers. They sit on the beak and inhibit forward vision. They can still see up and down to spot danger and to eat. I leave them on for about six to eight weeks and then remove them. The behavior usually does not resume.

Be aware that this feather picking behavior is often seasonal. It tapers off in fall and winter and picks back up in spring again.

Now I’m wondering is something else causes the feathers to fall out and the pulley was pecking because it was noticeable and weird looking versus her causing the loss of feathers.

 

[azygous]

Probably not. Feather picking on that spot is very common.

If the feather loss is due to depluming mites, you'd see evidence in other areas on the body as well. It would make the feather appear thin, not chewed and ragged.

Feather picking occurs extremely often. I've fought it in my flock for fourteen years. There is no easy solution. It almost always recurs.

 

[Micmac1234]

Probably not. Feather picking on that spot is very common.

If the feather loss is due to depluming mites, you'd see evidence in other areas on the body as well. It would make the feather appear thin, not chewed and ragged.

Feather picking occurs extremely often. I've fought it in my flock for fourteen years. There is no easy solution. It almost always recurs.

Interesting. I wonder what’s going on with the other behavior then…

 

[azygous]

Are you referring to feather picking behavior and why chickens do it?

Feather picking can have several causes - boredom, dietary deficiencies, and my favorite, obsessive compulsive behavior fixated on feathers of their mates, sometimes their own bodies. In other words, some chickens have this wired into their brains and hormone levels increasing seems to coincide with an uptick in the behavior.

 

[Micmac1234]

Are you referring to feather picking behavior and why chickens do it?

Feather picking can have several causes - boredom, dietary deficiencies, and my favorite, obsessive compulsive behavior fixated on feathers of their mates, sometimes their own bodies. In other words, some chickens have this wired into their brains and hormone levels increasing seems to coincide with an uptick in the behavior.

That’s interesting about the hormones because the pecker is the one that I think is about to lay her first egg, and the first egg of the whole flock. Plus the one she’s pecking, Daisy, is the runt.
But the behavior I was referring to was an earlier reply that I’m not sure you saw. I’ve copied and pasted it below.

So I have been out there with the spray bottle today and I think it’s helping! She does not like being sprayed. However, the one being pecked at, Daisy, seems a little lethargic. I was dropping some grit for them on the ground and all of the chickens always run away when I drop it and she just stood there. She’s also heavily favoring her left leg (so the right one is bugging her) and it seems like when she’s walking sometimes her right leg will just give out. I tried to pick her up and she pecked at me so I don’t know if it hurt her or what. Her foot looks fine and her leg looks fine too so nothing surface level. She also pooped 4 times in a matter of 5 minutes and the first two looked kind of hard and all 4 were very small…