My chicken is going bald!

[fuzzy5chicks]

(Hopefully you can see the image)
My Dominique had a spot on the back, near her tail, with no feathers. Is this because she is being picked on by the other chickens? Is she molting? Is it painful? If it is harming my chicken, how do it get it to stop?

 

[Happy Chooks]

Do you have a rooster?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I don't see any broken feathers and that is a very small patch of featherless chicken hide. I am going to advise you to read up on Depluming or Feather Mites. Don't waste your time looking for these mites they are very small and live and reproduce INSIDE the feather shaft so they are quite invisible to the naked eye and most dusts like Sevin 5% and DE are worst than useless..

Don't confuse feather mites with chicken lice, they are totally different. Good luck. You may need it. Dipping all your chickens at once is the way to go. Some of the pour on flea medicines may work just as well.

 

[fuzzy5chicks]

I don't have a rooster, I heard that that will often happen to their back feathers when you have them though

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I don't have a rooster, I heard that that will often happen to their back feathers when you have them though

It is mostly broken feathers, not missing feathers. Consider the Depluming Mites.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I don't have a rooster, I heard that that will often happen to their back feathers when you have them though

Yes, the favorite will get more mating and they can lose feathers there. If you don't have a rooster, I'd say feather picking or creepy crawlies. For feather picking, overcrowding and boredom are the most common reasons. For mites, check your birds at night on the roost, mites only come out at night. For poultry lice, flip her upside down and look around her vent - lice look like little brown bugs and the eggs are white and clumped on the feather shaft. These are not the same as human lice, poultry lice lives on feather dander, so you can't get them from your birds. (unless you have feathers)