This is a difficult post but I decided to cull one of my Easter Eggers. I wasn't planning on it but today was the final straw.
For the last year, she's been plucking feathers off every hen and pullet and HERSELF. Sometimes she'll eat the feathers and sometimes she'll just methoically pull them out one by one and drop them. She'll even do it while free ranging. She'll literally wait until their heads are down and go up behind them. I've caught her plucking her own feathers out. She looked horrible. I tried everything except pinless peepers (I bought them but couldn't bring myself to use them).
She had tons of room when this first started, no stressful event. She's been on 20% protein feed since birth. Gets plenty of free range time to forage for bugs and stuff. She was also very skinny even though I watch her eat a lot and feel her crop fill and empty as normal. She's always one of the first to snacks. I think it was either a mental or physical problem. My other 2 EEs from the same brood are perfectly healthy.
Today I watched her chase any hen or pullet that got near her and try to pull feathers. She trapped one of my Welsummers. They're slow moving because they're going through a very rough molt. She started plucking the pins and got some blood and then went even harder on the poor hen that was trying to get away and squacking. The others all stayed back.
I went in and grabbed her and immediately culled her. It was so incredibly hard because she was one of my firsts and she lays these beautiful blue eggs. If I'm being honest with myself, I probably should have removed her sooner. As Mrs. K says, always solve for peace in the flock.
I was going to go ahead and process her for soup but after feeling her keel bone, I think there was some sort of issue with her not able to get the nutrients she needed. I didn't perform an autopsy because as this point, I was just sad.
