Naked chicken butts

[Cuttlefishherder]

Okay, we have three 9/10 month old barred rocks, two of then has naked spots above their tails and one has no feathers under her tail, they look really funny and are other wise healthy with healthy eating and healthy poo. But its been like this for 3 or 4 months, we rub olive oil to keep the skin from cracking and there is no blood, just naked chicken butt, and some feather spots have stringy looking shafts sticking out or like there is new feathers trying to grow back, but just never does. But now the one who is only missing feathers in front of her tail is now loosing her tail feathers, their just a scraggly group now. What causes this? and can we fix it?

Oh and there isn't pecking, or at-least a lot of it, these two are the bully chickens in the coop, if they get pecked they run down the culprit and land a few good pecks to the head. They don't get messed with that often...

 

[mamachook]

Oh my goodness!!! I have the exact same problem and I have no idea what to do! I was JUST logging on to post a topic about this when I saw yours! I'm so glad I'm not the only one with this weird problem.
I have four black Australorps, about 6 months old, beautiful girls. All their feathers are gorgeous except for the ones on their bottoms a little below the vent. I suspected bullying at first, but I haven't seen any signs of pecking at all and when the spots first appeared on two of my chickens, it was sudden. Like one day they were fine and the next day I was like WHAT is wrong with my chickens' butts? This was just a couple weeks, maybe a month ago. Now I have the spots on three of my four girls. The first two have very clean featherless spots, just smooth chickenskin. The third one has some odd little feather stubs and there was at first some scabbing. The fourth is completely normal.
So I posted a topic on this a few days ago and somebody said to check at night with a flashlight for mites or lice. I did that and found nothing at all.
I'm CLUELESS. WHY would my chickens have featherless spots when they aren't pecking each other, act perfectly normal and healthy, and don't have mites or lice? I think the featherlessness is starting to spread on at least one of my girls; I noticed a little bare patch on her leg too.
Sorry not to have any solutions for you; I'm just as clueless as you are. Please keep me posted if you get any ideas - I've never heard of this before and I have no idea where to start.
Zoe

 

[tammye]

You may have a feather plucker on your hands, I know I do, I have seen several of my hens while on the roost turn and pluck tail/butt feathers off of the other hens. You can tell who is the plucker-the one with all their feathers! One of my hens loves to eat the others feathers. I was told the feathers won't grow back until they molt, so I have three hens with bald spots, but otherwise happy.

 

[toletiquesbysam]

Yep, sounds like a feather picker to me! Check for lice/mices but if you don't see any then it's probably another chicken pulling the feathers off the others. I have ALOT of bare bottoms and just today ordered peepers from eggcartons.com to put on my chickens to stop it. I have bare backs as well. They say it's boredom, lack of protein, lice/mites, or lack of space/confinement.
Sorry, wish none of us had to go through this, it's not pretty and becomes a habit and then more bare bottoms or bare backs as well!

 

[Cuttlefishherder]

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I guess its feather pluckers but its only our 2 barred rocks that have silly naked butts, the third one has all her feathers but is looking like she might be starting to lose some too, but thats out of 23 chickens. We're just glad its not mites!

 

[Cuttlefishherder]

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But it seems confined to just our barred rocks, no one else is showing... and for as long as its been if it were mites then others would be affected.

 

[mamachook]

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That's exactly what it is! I had been reluctant to put my problem up to pecking since my girls never pick at each other during the day, but last night, just as they were going up to the roost, my one girl (the one with all the feathers, like you said) turned around and started picking feathers off one of my other girls. At least now I know what the problem is so I can go about fixing it! Thanks for the help!

 

[Chrissy88]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I have 4 girls just around 6 months old which I got when they were about 6 weeks. They've just started to lay eggs. I'm getting one or two a day, and I'm not sure which ones are laying and which aren't. I thought it was Sue, my black austrolorpe (sorry if spelling is wrong) because she was starting to squat down in the yard alot. We were letting them out for several hours a day to run around the yard, but when we got the first egg I confined them for a week hoping they'd learn where to lay. After about two weeks I started letting them out again for an hour or two in the late afternoon. Well everything seemed fine until today I noticed that all the soft fuzzy feathers on Sue's butt are gone! I don't think she was like that yesterday. I'm fairly diligent about cleaning the coop daily but we have extremely hot weather and some very rainy humid days. When I give them scraps (they love the heel part of the loaf of bread!) I did notice that the other three were much more agressive and Sue wasn't really getting any unless I tossed it right to her when the others weren't paying attention. She is the most gentle and the one we probably handle the most because she lets us pick her up willingly. Although I've seen a little squabling, I hadn't seen any serious abuse. Could Sue be the low girl on the pecking order and the added stress of confinement led the others to pick all her butt feathers in one night?! They were obviously not happy about me not letting them out as they were making alot of noise. My husband thought Jennifer the Rhode Island Red was the main layer because he saw her sitting in the hay and squawking up a storm. I'm going to check carefully tomorrow and make sure it's not parasite problem, but I really doubt it. I also think they are too young for molting and it doesn't seem to follow the stated pattern. They all roost at night on one section of the coop squashed up together of their own choosing, so if one of them is plucking Sue at night, how do I get it to stop?

 

[MMPoultryFarms]

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[Cuttlefishherder]

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I dont know how to go about stopping it, But she is for sure the last one on the totem pole lol. All 9 of out adult laying hens squash them self's on to the smallest perch in the coop and our poor Buff Orphington is at the bottom of our pecking order. They squabble and peck till every one is in normal order, which is the same order every night lol. Every one is so squashed on that one little perch that some of the hens disappear under others and at night some times one of them will fall off the perch and start a fuss in the middle of the night freaking out the house hold because we worry about the coyotes that wander our part of town. They are too funny some times.
The thing about perching is that the chickens will almost always choose the same order, our pullets are more flexible on the order thing but the Hens just wont change up the order, I wouldn't want to try and rearrange them because they are so mean to one another when they are out of order.