my almost 2 year old females have bald patchs on the back of neck

[lovable82305]

we started out with 7 females and 1 male and had no problems we baught 17 chicks from someone and was told they were all females and well they are not so now we have like 8 males and 15 females... now our older females have bald patches on the back of there necks.. dont know what to do or what could be causing this someone told us it could be because of the males but dont know please help i dont want anything to happen to our girls.. we have grown attached..

 

[sourland]

Get rid of seven of the roosters, and all will go back to normal. Way too many roosters, and they are overbreeding the hens.

 

[chicmom]

Hey Love-

Sour is right. What's happening is that the roosters are grabbing the hens by the neck feathers in order to keep them still so they can mate. Of course, if the hen doesn't cooperate, the feathers are yanked out. And you're right, the ratio of roosters to hens is way too high. With those numbers, I would only have one rooster. Two at the max. One is really ideal though.

If you can, watch the way the roosters behave--really study them and pick the rooster that treats the hens the best, and secondly, the best looking rooster.

 

[speckledhen]

If they are really that age, then that is the time of the first molt, where they lose and replace feathers.