Pecking bottoms

[nlund]

I have 14 chicks that are about 6 weeks old they have slowly started pecking at their bottoms and some of them now have feathers missing and bloody areas, what do I do? And why are they doing this? Thai. You so much in advance!

 

[RC Cruiser]

I am experiencing the same thing!

I have 6 Rhode Island Reds and 6 Delawares. They are about 9 weeks old now.

I have separated them until they healed. But, today I found my one Rhode Island Red pecked and bleeding on its backside and neck.

She's now separated.

I need help too!!

 

[Choco Maran]

over crowding lack of protein, boredom. These are the main reason for feather picking. Seeing it is in the tail end it could all so be mites or lice. Dust with D. Earth FOOD GRADE and that will help with the mites and lice. Are they in with older birds?

 

[RC Cruiser]

Choco Marin,

They are all 9 weeks old and no others are with them. They've never been around any other chickens.

Just went to Tractor Supply and bought DE. Going to rake out the chicken run which is all sand and then put the DE on it. Then I'm going to clean out the coop and spray, then put new pine flakes down in the coop.

I also bought a pecking block too. Hopefully that will help with the boredom aspect.

I've fed them Watermelon, cantaloupe, and bread. All at different times. Want to add some things to their diet other than the chicken feed as a treat. They ate it all up.

We just added nesting boxes today, 14 of them. We have a large coop and large caged chicken run. There is a lot of room for the 12 of them.

But like I said prior, I have quarantined the RIR today. We built a separate section inside the coop for her. She has her own nesting box, floor space, food and water. She can see the others through the fencing we have up. So, they are next to each other but cannot touch whatsoever.

These are the 1st chickens that we've ever owned and this is all new to us. I just want my girls healthy and happy egg layers. They won't start producing eggs until the end of Oct-beginning of November according to the chicken farm where we bought them.

Praying that we're doing the right things for them.

 

[Justice success]

I had the same issue with my chickens,
we had two isa browns that kept on pecking each other and pulling feathers out of their neck and bottoms.
At one point it actually started bleeding and that made it worse becuase they started pecking even more,
so I decided to check their feathers and they had lice! we applied the lice medicine and eventually they
stopped pecking each other and their feathers grew back. I also read somewhere that chickens can pull out
their feathers from boredom.

I also found this link that may help: http://hencam.com/faq/bare-butts-feather-loss-and-feather-picking/

I'm not a qualified person but this is just from my own experience
I hope this helps