PLEASE HELP! Chicken emergency !!

[crazychick5]

Hi I have a emergency I have a feather plucker in my group of 8 hens but today I went to work come home to check on them and one of my hens was bleeding a lot out of her bum and all her feather were plucked an blood everywhere. I rushed her to the vets and now she is on pain killers and anti biotics and I have to hibi scrub her bum twice a day. I have separated her from the others but now I'm worried about putting her back after she heals and what do I do with my hens that feather pluck ? I don't want to kill them and I don't want to get rid of them but what if they start plucking the other hens or the injured hen when I put her back after she is healed? Why do they feather peck ? Is she bored they have a large coop and run and have layers pellets with boss and treats every now and then. I let them free range when I am around as well. What should I do? Separate the pluckers from the rest? Or try to work through it and get them to stop plucking ? Please help

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If they have plenty of space, then the next thing I'd look at is protein.
Feathers are about 92% protein and feather picking is often a need for more of those amino acids.
Boss, if still in the hull is lower in protein than layer and layer is basically the minimum that will allow good egg laying. Treats further lower the protein unless they are meat or fish.

 

[crazychick5]

I do buy a lot of tuna and meat for them as treats but I mean she had a lot of protein with that and they have crickets and mealworms and worms also grass hoppers I mean surely she can't need that much protein ?!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

That was just my first thought without knowing what they were eating.

When I lowered the protein from 20 to 16 too early for some maturing pullets and cockerels, I had some cannibalism in both groups,

 

[junebuggena]

How big is the coop and run? What breeds do you have?

 

[crazychick5]

The coop is 8ft long x 6ft wide and the run is 7ft wide and 29 ft long. I have 2 bluebells 2 hybrids 2 white Sussex and 2 silkies. I got them all at the same time. One of the hybrids is the one who started feather pecking and then one of the white Sussex has started copying her and then the attack happened today

 

[junebuggena]

They have plenty of room. A higher protein feed might be what they need.

 

[EMM70]

I'm raising my first flock of chickens and now have the same problem. I have seven week old chicks that are a mix of RIR, Barred Plymouth Rock and Ameraucana. They were just to the point when I was going to move them to their coop when I found one of the Ameraucanas with a bloody bare spot just above her tail. Suspecting it might be overcrowding, after treating and separating the injured bird, I moved the others to their coop where they have close to four times more space (now 30 birds in 48 square feet) . Two days have passed and today I found two more birds with missing feathers in the same area above their tails and a third who has been pecked above the tail, feathers missing and bloody. I've read here that it may be a protein deficiency. They're getting a starter feed containing 19 percent protein. Should I increase the amount of protein they are getting? I'm going to watch them closely now to see if there's a particularly aggressive bird instigating this. Is there anything else I should watch or is there anything more I can do?

 

[junebuggena]

They are still too crowded in only 48 sq ft of space. You'll need a minimum of 6 sq ft of coop and run space per chick for chicks that age.