AZChickieMom
In the Brooder
- Jul 5, 2021
- 11
- 8
- 13
Hi I’m new to this forum so please bare with me! I live in central Arizona, so it’s hot here, I feel that mites and lice aren’t something that would be a huge problem and I’ve never seen anything that makes me think my flock has that as an issue but maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for. I have 6 Red sexlink chickens and they are about 15 months old and I’ve had them since day olds. I know I’ve read they start molting around 16 to 18 months old, but I feel like they started losing their brown outer feathers around October/November of last year, starting on their backs and their egg production never skipped a beat. Their white under feathers started showing more and more. One of the six hens kept going broody and she was the only one whose feathers stayed looking nice and full. They were soft to the touch while the other girls started getting crunchy in texture. Since that time frame they just kept getting worse looking (except the one who kept going broody). We finally broke her of her broodiness a couple of weeks ago (seemed like she was broody forever and ever!) and all of the sudden started losing feathers left and right and seems to be going through a hard molt. I have been going through all different kinds of feed of varying protein to try and fix the feather issue for months. I switched to dr pol 28% protein feed recently which seemed to help. I supplement with calcium of course, and I noticed their feathers slowly started to come in. Now it seems like they aren’t coming in as well as the one with the hard molt. The one who was broody looks like she’s growing in her feathers nicely, lots of pin feathers coming in. I still notice them pecking each other and feather picking so I’m wondering if that’s causing problems with their feathers growing back in or if the one who was broody (she’s also the top chook) is causing issues for the other 5? I get worried about the high protein although they seem to really need it. They aren’t free range but are in a 10x20 ft enclosure. Any suggestions or insights?? They just look so terrible I get worried it may be something other than molting. Sorry for the long winded explanation I wanted to give as much detail as possible. I will take pictures soon to post as well.
