One Feather Picking/Eating Culprit...What Can I Do?

[SunnyChic]

I have a 5 week old RIR that has developed the bad habit of picking and eating feathers. He is the only one out of eleven that will pick a tail feather and eat it. All the others seek out, scratch & peck just the food & black sunflower seeds. When watching this little guy in the pen, he wanders around, targets a tail, pulls a feather out, eats it, and then hunts for a different tail to pluck. I have separated him (he's in a pet carrier right now & very unhappy). He did this a week ago in another pen, so I isolated him and then put him in this pen with chicks that were a couple of weeks older than him. He was at the bottom of the pecking order and didn't feather pick at first. Now he's back to doing it again.

Do I need to cull him?

 

[Judy]

You've already tried the best remedy I've read about. I would. I'd put him back by himself for about 6 more weeks and fry him; RIR is delicious.

 

[enola]

You can shorten the top half of his beak so he cannot grip feathers so well.....

Or you can fry him when the time comes.

 

[SunnyChic]

Thanks for the replies...I guess I'm going to learn how to butcher a chicken sooner rather than later. Thank goodness I just got the book Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens; it tells you exactly what to do. The book also shows you where to shorten up the beak.