Rooster (and some hens) Loosing Feathers...

[Brillig]

Howdy!!!

My rooster and a couple of hens are loosing feathers on their backs near their tails (and one hen is loosing feathers under her wattle)...

I've ignored feather loss in the past, as I've always attributed it to breeding with a low hen to rooster ratio, but now I have twenty four hens and two roosters and the rooster is not being overbred, so I'm wondering what it might be...

Thoughts???

 

[sourland]

It may be a molt, but sounds more like feather picking.

 

[Brillig]

Who would pick feathers off the rooster or from under a hen's chin???

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Who would pick feathers off the rooster or from under a hen's chin???

Other birds do it all the time. My lower ranking hens sometimes get their chin plucked and I have watched hens plucking the roosters who sit with their eyes closed until the hen is done.

How old are your birds?

 

[Brillig]

The roosters and five hens were born May of 2016...The other seventeen hens were born between February and April of this year...

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The roosters and five hens were born May of 2016...The other seventeen hens were born between February and April of this year...

Than its probably the molt, especially if you see pin feathers coming in. Some molt hard, and it looks quite frightening to suddenly see half naked hunched up birds.

 

[Brillig]

Maybe...It just didn't happen last year, so I'm kinda scratching my head...They get lots of dirt baths, so I doubt it's mites, but they do get artificial light until midnight, so thought it might be pecking...

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

That's a lot light, which is unnatural. I would cut back on that for sure.

 

[Brillig]

I here that, but again...It's been that way for over a year and a half and this is kind of a sudden onset of symptoms...Are you suggesting it's pecking from too much light???

 

[theoldchick]

Get your hands on one of your birds and see what the skin looks like. You might see mites or lice. Some of the most common reasons you see feather loss is molt, poor diet, internal and external parasites and overcrowding. It is common for a lower ranked bird to dibble at the neck of a dominant bird. Also, a dominant bird will yank a lower rank bird off the nest by snatching her by the head/neck and dragging her off the nest.