Okay, having waged a 5 month campaign against it, I have learned a thing or two about anti-picking... Here's what I came up with via recommended and invented methods:
Slathering: .. act of attempting to make the feathers less palatable to pickers, and a bit of an embarrassment to the pickee...
-Cayenne pepper - they thought they were doing TexMex for the week
-Vicks Vaporub - still picked what couldn't be slathered, but everyone breathed well for the week
-Non-toxic white paint (on Rooster's red neck - idea that it would not draw attention to the bald spot) No dice, but Hansel is now reading up on the requirements of becoming a rodeo clown - nice that he has a hobby.
-Pine Tar - yes... just keep laughing - discovered emergency alternative for home waxing.
-Rooster Booster Pick-no-More - works like a CHAMP as long as you apply it every two or three minutes - use gloves or suffer the curios pitying stares and calls to local drug enforcement teams from the grocery store when you reach for the bag of macaroni with purple hands, your eyes still red because you rubbed them not knowing that Rooster Booster contains capsacin also used to launch the space shuttle.
Psychology: The act of interviewing each hen to sort out what she's missing in her life that would prompt her to pluck and eat the outer layer of her compatriots, making educated interpretations and offering alternatives.
-Freud and Nietchi both threw in the towel, forever haunted with the answers they couldn't find through the minds of hens. Their personal journals filled with sketches of the one-eyed chicken look, and complex nest box choice behaviors.
-Hang a cabbage - Evidently hens are into boxing - my bunch seem to be more the mixed martial arts sorts, so only strange slow head shaking that I would think they might fall for it
-Light Therapy - change red heat light to white one - perhaps alleviating seasonal affective disorder: made the target feathers more visible.
-leave the henhouse door open so they could feel free go out earlier in the day: insomniac husband offers to alleviate the problem with acute flock removal around 4:45 a.m.; heating bill rivals national debt.
-Create bigger windows -as any group of women, they couldn't agree on the fabric for the window treatments, and (so sorry).. feathers flew.
- Separate flock members with expensive, elaborate maze of material requiring 4 days to construct, a black thumbnail and a tetanus shot: everyone missed each other so badly they leaned against the new fence so the others could pick feathers through the wire - those left out paced in front of new wire, which performed beautifully as an automatic feather plucker. (must remember this if all of this comes to the soup pot)
Nutrition: The act of obtaining degrees in neuromicrobiochemistry, endocrinology and master chef status at the Culinary Institutes of France, New York and Madagascar so approaches to affecting feather picking behaviors are educated and adept.
-Spend child's college tuition on forage cakes from McMurray Hatchery, calming b vitamin complexes, mineral supplements, avia charge, and a sort of gourd fruit only growing in an obscure corner of the jungle in Peru found and treasured by the last lost Mayan tribe, requiring fire-walking and a virgin sacrifice to obtain... Rooster asking for a name change from Hansel to "The Great Featherless Frank - as he is now resigned to his condition and wants a flashier application to rodeo clown school... The eggs now give us gas.
-Provide a flat of fresly sprouted wheat-grass: dug up grass to use soil beneath for a dust bath - adding minerals and nutrients to the feathers... glad they're getting some roughage
-Create tableside flambe of proteins, complex carbohydrates, iron, calcium, nitrates, vitamins, using a recipe of cat food, bread crusts, scrambled egg, hard boiled egg, tuna tartare, something in a baggie in the back of my fridge, a buffalo porterhouse (medium rare) and a glass of '93 Chateau beuf special reserve... has to be carried out at the end of a long stick. Does the trick for an hour... hens on their backs rubbing their bellies in bliss... then realize they haven't had dessert - decide on feather a-la-mode.
Educated Conclusion to end feather picking:
A. Pre-pluck all chickens, and knit them sweaters.
B. Fire up the soup pot.
