My Chicken's feathers are breaking in half

[Lucine]

A lot of my chicken's tail feathers are breaking in half and falling out. I heard the mice could be causing it, but she lives inside in a small coop. He rest of the tail feathers look strange. I'm worried that all of them will either fall out or break and not grow back.

 

[Kiki]

Hi there!
Could you post a few pictures of her?

 

[sawilliams]

they will grow back next winter when she molts.

As for mice? did you mean mites? Yes might would cuase irritation which the hens would then try to clean the irritated area sometimes breaking off or pulling out feathers in the process... have you checked for mites or live? There are treatments but the best thing you can do is treat any wood inside the coop and provide a dry dusting area outside treated with food grade DE or other poultry safe insect powders. The other one in thinking of started with a p but i can't recall the name. If your hens are in fact infested you might need to research other treatments to get the situation under control. I haven't had an issue yet (knock on wood) but i just dust all exposed wood in the coop about twice a year, and add some to the dusting areas around the yard at the same time. But besides that yes thier feathers will break off from time to time and get more tatered towards the fall and winter leading up to molt. If they are in a small area there may be more breakage then normal too increasing the size of the coop and/or run may be helpful. I'm seeing a lot of this right now as my girls are in a much smaller set up then they are use to becuase we recently moved and are still working on thier new coop and run area that in the end will be much bigger then they had before.

 

[Kiki]

DE will not get rid of mites or lice.
Permethrin will.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, Lucine, welcome to the forum.

Where do you live, north or south of the equator? Could this be a molt?

I agree some photos could help. It sounds like you only have one chicken so it's not feather picking or anything like that. A check for mites or lice could be a good idea.

How are you feeding her? Brittle feathers can be caused by a nutritional lack. Brittle feathers can also be caused by genetic issues but that should be more than the tail feathers.

The more you can tell us about how you are keeping the chicken the more likely we will be able to help.

 

[sawilliams]

DE will not get rid of mites or lice.
Permethrin will.

that was the one i couldn't think of the name

 

[Lucine]

Hi, Lucine, welcome to the forum.

Where do you live, north or south of the equator? Could this be a molt?

I agree some photos could help. It sounds like you only have one chicken so it's not feather picking or anything like that. A check for mites or lice could be a good idea.

How are you feeding her? Brittle feathers can be caused by a nutritional lack. Brittle feathers can also be caused by genetic issues but that should be more than the tail feathers.

The more you can tell us about how you are keeping the chicken the more likely we will be able to help.

Here's three pictures of her. She's a Dutch Bantum. The second one is a picture

of her tail which doesn't really look right to me. My other hens' tail feathers all look fine and aren't splitting in half.

 

[MillersFarm]

they look fine to me, just a little messy is all.

 

[Kiki]

Tail looks fine to me too...the eye looks a little off to me though.

 

[Kiki]