Update: Bare breasts on hens - Mites, now what?

[heatherma]

Sorry, couldn't help the title! Maybe I'll get more response with a catchy title...

I have 9 hens of various breeds and they have a nice clean hen house, enclosed dirt run, water, pellets, occasional greens and extra protein.

Today I noticed one of my Delawares to be pecked/molting at the neck and on closer inspection was bare all the way down to skin or beyond on her breast bone. I came on here and looked up solutions for pecking and mixed some aquaphor and tea tree oil and spread it on her. I decided to check them all and see if others were being pecked at or beginning molting and what do you know they all have bare chests under all those feathers, the skin is very smooth almost waxy looking as if one had skinned a chicken.

Is this the beginning of molt for them all? I thought that they would have at least bumpy chicken skin to protect them. They have not molted much and are almost a year and a half. If this is indeed molting and not some other problem, what if anything should I do for them?

Thank you all for your input!

 

[PandoraTaylor]

if it is indeed a moult :
Add extra Protein to the diet, Vitamins & Minerals to their water.

 

[Mahonri]

Either she is moulting or getting ready to get broody.

 

[chookchick]

Could be a combination of broody "chest cleaning" that you may not have noticed before, and a molt. I would be really nervous about putting tea tree oil on her--I thought I read that it is toxic to chickens. I'll take a look at that....

Posted from another thread: (by speckled hen)


Here is one article about Tea tree oil toxicity. It's definitely poisonous to ingest and since birds groom themselves, they can ingest it, depending on where it is applied.
http://www.exoticbird.com/gillian/teatree.html

Then, there is this warning from the article listed after:

( Note to Bird Owners: *Tea Tree Essential has caused paralysis in birds when the dosage administered was too high. As safe doses have not been established, it's best not to use this essential oil around your birds. )

http://www.avianweb.com/birdproofingyourhome.html

-----I would definitely wash that stuff off of her! No need to treat her with anything....

 

[Wynette]

From how you describe this, it doens't sound like molting to me; it's not usual that they have large patches of bare skin when they molt. I've seen it, but typically when they're down to the skin like that, it's another issue such as mites.

When broody, they will remove feathers from their lower chest, not up their neck.

It COULD be an unusually heavy molt, but I would double check for mites; they're hard to see sometimes, but when they have them, they can peck their feathers clean off due to the itchiness of them.

 

[heatherma]

thanks. I only used 1 drop of TTO and 1 Tbs aquaphor and mixed it, and even then I only used a tiny dab. I'll try and catch her again and wash it off with a washcloth.

So after doing some more reading, I think it might be mites? They dust bathe regularly outside, can I use a sprinkle of non-food grade DE in that? Or do I need to get Sevin or something else and spray coop,etc.?

Please let me know a treatment for mites that works and isn't too hard to use.
Thanks for helping me, I have 2 small boys to go keep up with so appreciate not searching for hours for this info.

 

[theFox]

Do not use non food grade DE around any bird.

Sevin and ProZap work well with mites and lice, just be certain that you don't inhale or get it on your skin. Keep the dust away from the face of your birds. Apply the powder making sure you get all the way down to the skin, start around the neck using some of the powder on cloth go towards the vent. You can also (if the bird lets you) put the powder in plastic bag and place the bird in the bag butt end first and give the bag a few taps to spread a cloud of the powder over the bird. You need to do every bird and the coop and run. This will need repeating at the intervals specified on the container until the problem is gone. This may require that you do the treatment more than two times, pay close attention to what the label says for maximum repeats, once reached you need to switch to another insecticide.