Sussex chicks molting or getting pecked?!

[brandimularski33]

Hello! This is my first post here but Thankyou to everyone who contributes to this site as I have had lots of questions answered here.

Just a quick background. We have 6 week baby chicks and are living in north alabama where the climate has been high 80s-90s during the day and 70s at night. We moved our chicks to their new coop and plan to keep them there for a few days to get used to it. I moved everyone except for our 4 Sussex chicks. We have several breeds including eggers, marans, and Barreds. For the past week I’ve noticed some small bald spots in the Sussex chicks and they seemed noticeably worse yesterday, especially under their wings. ITS ONLY THIS BREED. My husband and I thought they may be molting but now im unsure if they are just getting pecked at. We actually had 7 in the beginning and lost three we believe to a snake a few weeks ago. They are so sweet and gentle so not sure if they are at the bottom of the pecking order and that’s the issue. Has anyone who had Sussex chicks noticed bleeding or balding when getting feathers in around this time? I’ll take pics soon but I think one of them had a blood feather which seems to have clotted. But it looks like there are two or three feathers like that. Also, any idea how to move forward with this? I applied that purple peck no more stuff I had to use for our polish chick a few weeks ago but not sure what else to do.

 

[sourland]

Can you post a picture of the chicks?

 

[azygous]

Terrific first post! Not many are this thorough with information. Good job!

You likely have both molting and picking going on. The dried blood points to picking. There's nothing to do about the molting, which is probably the first of several juvenile molts that can sometimes rival the adult molt in amount of feathers lying about.

The first step in addressing the picking is to try to identify the culprit(s). That shouldn't be difficult. Just watch the chicks for a while to see how they interact. Usually, feather picking ramps up in the afternoons. The best thing to do with a feather picking chick is to discipline it immediately with a poke on the back when you see it peck at a mate. Keep that up over an hour's time and often that will retrain a chick not to pick.

You may paint Blu-kote on any bare skin spots to neutralize the appearance and attractiveness of bare flesh. (Tip. Use a Q-tip, not the applicator in the bottle). Also, it would be best to have the chicks outside all day in a spacious run. This will do more than anything else to curb this behavior and let the chicks run off the excess energy.

 

[brandimularski33]

Can you post a picture of the chicks?

 

[sourland]

Yep, they are being feather pecked/plucked. The question is why just them and not the others?

 

[brandimularski33]

Terrific first post! Not many are this thorough with information. Good job!

You likely have both molting and picking going on. The dried blood points to picking. There's nothing to do about the molting, which is probably the first of several juvenile molts that can sometimes rival the adult molt in amount of feathers lying about.

The first step in addressing the picking is to try to identify the culprit(s). That shouldn't be difficult. Just watch the chicks for a while to see how they interact. Usually, feather picking ramps up in the afternoons. The best thing to do with a feather picking chick is to discipline it immediately with a poke on the back when you see it peck at a mate. Keep that up over an hour's time and often that will retrain a chick not to pick.

You may paint Blu-kote on any bare skin spots to neutralize the appearance and attractiveness of bare flesh. (Tip. Use a Q-tip, not the applicator in the bottle). Also, it would be best to have the chicks outside all day in a spacious run. This will do more than anything else to curb this behavior and let the chicks run off the excess energy.

Thankyou so much for the tip!! I can look for the interaction when I put them back with the others…at the moment I just have the four alone in the brooder. I actually have been using a q-tip with the blu-kote!

I won’t be able to identify the bully since I separated them at the moment and the others are in the coop. They will be out on the run in only a few days so hopefully that will alleviate the boredom. I will also give them eggs every once in a while for protein.

My next questions now if it’s a pecking issue is how long should I keep them separated from the others? It seems like it will take a while for them to be fully healed…should I reintroduce them to the rest of the flock in a few days and just continue applying the peck no more cream? I feel like this is going to make things complicated since I have the rest of the birds getting acclimated to the coop the next few days and the Sussex will have to go through the same process at different time. Ahh! Haha

 

[brandimularski33]

Yep, they are being feather pecked/plucked. The question is why just them and not the others?

That’s what is a head scratcher…my theory is because they’re molting seems..aggressive and they seem to be the lowest on the pecking order. But idk.

 

[azygous]

I'd keep them together and try to identify the perpetrators for discipline. The Blu-kote should slow down the picking.