New to chicken life

[carolineloesch]

Hi everyone...I'm having a little trouble with my hens....they have bare butts and their feathers on top near their tail feather are gone. We thought they might of had mites (which I can see any) but we clean their coop and their run really good and powered the girls too. We did caught our white hens picking the other girls feather off and eating them. That problem has been taken care of ...but their feathers still doesn't seem to be growing back. I really need your help please. Dont know what to do.

 

[Paganrose]

Welcome To BYC!

Make sure to check out the learning center!

How old are your hens? How long have you had them? What did you do to stop the feather picking? Sometimes hens that are stressed will molt, causing them to loose feathers. If hens are eating or picking feathers they may have nutrition or boredom issues.

It may take a few weeks for feathers to grow back in.

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi and welcome to BYC - glad that you have joined us. In addition to the learning centre, your state thread is worth joining as you will get to know other BYC members in your area (just type your state in the search box). In fact, the search box should become your best friend

Lastly but by no means least, the members here are amazing - very friendly and helpful, so if you need an answer to a question or simply want some reassurance that what you are doing is ok, then post away - we all help each other out here at BYC

All the best
CT

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

 

[NickyKnack]

There's a lot of great peeps here! Feel free to ask lots of questions. But most of all, make yourself at home. I'm so glad you decided to join the BYC family. I look forward to seeing you around the run.

 

[drumstick diva]

feather eating is usually a sign they need more protein., as opposed to feather plucking which is just plain mean.

 

[N F C]

Paganrose has given you some good ideas of what might be behind the feather issue, hope it helps.

 

[carolineloesch]

My chickens are a year old, unfortunately the one that was doing the picking went bye bye. but for the boredom part...there are lots of things in their run ...ladder, stumps, bottles with scratch in it....bath box. (we put ashes from our wood stove and mix it in their box). Today we will power them again and my husband went to buy protein supplement. So lets hope all this works. I have One more question ...I have 2 phoenix hens that brooding all the time (I have no roosters) ...I have made a brooding box which I put them in there for a few days..and then turn them out with the others....next thing I know there back on the roost again. I only have 8 chickens so I go get their eggs reguraly so the phoenixs don't lay on them...they want to be mommies so bad.