One of my chickens have gone bare!

[Shawnna R]

I went out into my coop today to close up the coop at night and noticed feathers laying ALL over. So me thinking "Oh no, something got a hold of one of my chickens" I rushed into the coop to find more feathers I mean TONS. The feathers looked like they were from one of my Dark Brahmas. I only have two of that breed so I hunted them down in the coop. Both were there and fine. But one of them was bare it starts right about where her wings start and ends right before her tail, there is no sign of redness and there seems to be little "stubs" left on her back. I have previously had issues with pecking, but it did not look like some had plucked her feathers all out. She doesn't look like she is molting, I do believe she is still laying, and she looks healthy and acts just fine. I do have a rooster, he is young, but is a mellow, typically gentle rooster. Any thoughts on what is wrong with her?

 

[jenifry]

Do you have mite or lice problems? Does she have any injury? Could she just be molting heavily?

On a strange note, I had a group of hens peck a molting hen's back almost clean in a day. They had a heavy load of veggie and fruit scraps because I was canning, and lacked protein because they weren't eating their layer feed. My hens were actually plucking at my poor hen for her the new feather growth, and eating her new feathers as they pulled them. (I picked up a fresh roadkill rabbit for extra protein for them, and the problem stopped immediately, I also switched to meatbird feed for a week and metered out the veggies and fruit.)