What exactly is molting?

[Rocket Raley]

What exactly is molting?
My 12 buff hens are still laying everyday and look like they need to put some pants on cause their butts have no feathers left. We just figured it’s because our 1 buff rooster (Red) is very active. (I mean every couple of minutes)

Well, Red now has a bare spot. It’s a square spot right above his tail on his back, about 3” x 3”. It was even bleeding yesterday.

I aint seen any hens jumping on him, so is he molting?

He is so big and has never allowed me to hold him so I can’t put any meds on it.

 

[LoneCowboy]

He shouldn't be bleeding. Molting is when they loose their feathers and put on new ones.

 

[nccountrygirl]

sounds like some pecking going on. You need to put some BluKote on him so they will leave his behind alone, the blood makes them canniblistic. You can get the BluKote in a spray and you might need to seperate him for awhile till he heals. Good luck.

 

[Rocket Raley]

LoneCowboy

Molting is when they loose their feathers and put on new ones

Do they loose all of their feathers at once or just in patches?


nccountrygirl

BluKote

I'll check on that.

2 months ago, I noticed they were attackin each other and eatting each others feathers so I gave then a little cat food for 3 days and it stopped. This time I don't think it is that because there are feathers laying around and they are not eating them.​

 

[nccountrygirl]

I recently had this happen to my roo to. The hens pulled all his tail feathers out and had his rear bloody, it has since healed but now he's bald on his butt. We had to corner Moe and put the BluKote on him but we could not find the spray so we had to use WoundKot and it had an applicator, what a mess. I hope this help you out, I'm a newbie too.

 

[nccountrygirl]

You might also need to feed them some Black Oil Sunflower seeds. Mine were doing the same thing eating all of the small feathers that would float down from the roost but it has slacked off some since I started them on the seeds.

 

[Rocket Raley]

Thanks nccountrygirl,

I'll give it a try