Pinless Peepers Work!

[7L Farm]

I'm not knocking the product & if they work for your flock that's great. I had some feather picking going on & still do. I put the peepers on & left them on for weeks. The feather picking still continues. Most of my chickens were pecking the feathers around their vent area. Now, I noticed feathers missing on their backs as well. I thought it was the roo. I'm sure some feather loss on the back is from the roo but I noticed the other day one of my hens picking feathers from the back of one of my girls as well. I have put some saddles on a few girls. I wish I knew how to stop this behaviour.

 

[sben451]

I had to resort to these peepers last year when several of my EE roos decided to pick at all the other chickens in the pen. I tried everything else (plenty of greens, enough protein, plenty of room in the coop ) and peepers were the only thing that worked. Yes, they look a little odd, but--hey--they worked. No more picking. The peepers fell off after a couple of months and by then I guess that bad habit was broken--the peepers were no longer needed.

 

[Jason49424]

I found some here http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-pinless-p...127?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ac34be22f

 

[cheekyhens]

Have any of you found an issue with the chickens eating/drinking with these on? My waterer is a foot or so off the ground and the food too. They eat a lot off the ground as well.

 

[azygous]

I hate to be the one to throw cold water on your glow of success, but keep an eye on them as they may adapt to the peepers and learn to resume picking feathers after a few months.

If a peeper wearer has demonstrated good behavior for four months, I usually remove the peepers and see if they go back to their evil ways. I hate to tell you that three out of four usually resume picking after the peepers come off.

Others resume picking even though they are wearing the peepers. That's when I but the Bumpa-bit on them. It fits like the pinless peepers, but the bit goes between the upper and lower beak preventing the beak closing down completely. I hate to tell you that they adapt to those also, and resume feather picking wearing them.

Some chickens are career pickers and nothing short of cooking the culprits will cure them.

 

[nmilton8699]

Those are pretty silly looking! How do you get them on and how do they stay on?

I held the chicken and my husband just pushed them apart and clicked into their nostrils. They are having no issues with them at all.

 

[nmilton8699]

My question is how do they find food and water with these on?

 

[chicklover 1998]

they can see off to the side to see food and water it just keeps them from being able to see directly infront of them to be able to pick the feathers eventually they can adapt and usually do and then it starts again

 

[debir1966]

Do you think these would work to prevent egg eating? My two Leghorns have taken up the bad habit

 

[azygous]

You might try them. It might work. But the peepers are mostly for blocking forward vision, leaving downward vision unimpaired.


Are you certain these hens are opening eggs and eating them and not just eating broken eggs? It happens in my flock quite often that an egg gets accidentally broken in the nest and an opportunistic hen, sometimes more than one, will happily eat it. But none of my hens will bother intact eggs left in the nest boxes.