Can't stop feather picking and bullying

[Hrusty]

Hello All,

I'm brand new to this forum so I'm not sure where to best place to post this, so sorry if it landed in the wrong place. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated! I'm having trouble with excessive feather picking and bullying.

We have 6 hens...Black Jersey Giant, Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, Americauna, Columbian Wyandotte, Sapphire Olive Egger. They are all 15 months old and are good layers (we get 4-6 eggs per day). I've done a ton of reading on this sight as well as a few others and have tried some of the solutions offered but I just can't seem to get these two issues worked out. I am hoping you might be able to lend a hand:


3 of the hens currently have their back ends picked bald (one of those also has a bald neck). One was bleeding the other morning. A 4th hen used to have a bald neck, but for some reason the picking has stopped for her and she has regrown her neck feathers. The feather picking seems to happen at night because I have not really seen much evidence of it during the day. I've been battling this problem since late February. Here are things I've considered:
-Mites and Lice. I have checked them over thoroughly many times and cannot find any evidence of mites or lice. We had an experienced chicken keeper stop by today and she looked them over too and agreed there is no evidence of either mites or lice. In addition, 3 of the hens are currently fully feathered, do not have any bald spots at all, and look great. I've checked the coop and roost bar during the night and haven't found any critters crawling around. They have a dust bathing area in their run and they have dug a few additional ones in other parts of our yard.
-Lack of protein. I initially had them on a layer diet (Layena), but read that chickens may consume feathers to make up for a protein deficiency. I switched them over to a higher protein meat-bird diet back in March in case this was the issue.
-Boredom: The chickens are free to roam our fenced back yard during the day. It is 1/4 of an acre with a mix of woods/shrubs and some open areas. They have lots of space and seem to keep busy scratching, digging, dust bathing etc...
-Lack of space in the coop: As I mentioned they are out during the day, but they return to their coop each night as the sun sets. The coop is 4' x 6' inside with a 5' high ceiling. There is a 6' long roosting bar. When I check on them at night they are all bunched up on the roosting bar and there is lots of open space still available. The coop door automatically opens up shortly after sun rise so they can move into their covered run (4' x 16') and then I open the run door to let them out of the run by about 8:00 am.
-We tried pinless peepers on the two hens who have never had any bald spots (the Orpington and Americauna) thinking that there were probably the pickers. They spent two weeks in the peepers. Things did not really seem to change.
-We keep using Blue-Kote on the picked areas.

Here are links to a few pics to show what I'm dealing with:
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Second, the bullying...
A while back our Wyandotte didn't make it back into the coop at night. I thought a predator must have gotten her, but the next morning we found her over the fence in our neighbor's woods. When I brought her back to rejoin the group the Americauna and Jersey Giant went after her and chased her into the hedge. Any time they saw the Wyandotte they chased her. Wouldn't let her hang out with the group at all. I concluded that this is why she didn't return to the coop the previous night. It's weird because they all seemed to get along until just recently.

I took the two harassers out and put them in "jail". They spent the next week in a dog kennel separate from the flock in hopes of resetting the pecking order. At the end of the week I first reintroduced the Jersey Giant and things went well. 1 day later I reintroduced the Americauna. Unfortunately she went right back to harassing the Wyandotte. I feel terrible because the Wyandotte is such a sweet hen.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to offer. I appreciate your thoughts!

 

[SmiYa0126]

You're really thorough. You could try to separate the Americauna for a month, see if that resets her, otherwise I would re-home the Americauna .

 

[FrostRanger]

Hmm, that certainly is a headscracher. They seem to have plenty of space and their diet seems to be good as well. What would try as a last resort is to put pinless peepers on everyone -not just who you think is doing the feather picking - and see if that stops the issue. If that doesn't work I would find out who is doing the feather picking for sure and cull them. It sounds to me like you've tried about everything and at this point their behavior might just be too ingrained to change. I would be leery about rehoming the offender(s) too 'cause while it's possible she'll shape up in a new home, there's also a good chance she won't and now someone else will have a feather picking problem

 

[Hrusty]

Thank you both for your thoughts!

For the bullying, I will give the month-long separation a go for the Americauna. Hopefully that will cause her to shape up.

And peepers for the rest of the flock makes a lot of sense. I hadn't considered that. Maybe I have more than one feather picker??? It's tough to know for sure because this seems to happen at night when they are on the roost.

Anyone have any great ideas for how to catch the night pickers in the act (short of camping out in the coop) so I actually know who the offender(s) really is/are?

 

[FrostRanger]

The easiest way is to set up a game cam or something along those lines in there if you have it. Otherwise I'd maybe try a process of elimination. Have one bird sleep in a crate in the coop for a few days. If the feather picking stops, you'll know you probably only have one feather picker and it's probably her. If not, repeat with all 6 birds. If it doesn't stop, you might have multiple offenders on your hand. If you have the space and the crates, I'd start by jailing the ones with perfect feathers to see if they're really the ones doing it. If it still goes on, you know at least one of the victims is doing it herself. If that's the case, you're going to have to figure out who's doing it by procedurally jailing birds but by this point it's probably impractical to do so. If it does stop, release the birds one at a time and see if it starts up again. If it does, you know that bird is probably one of the problem hens and jail her. Then repeat with the remaining hens. I'd keep the offending hens jailed for a few weeks as a last, last resort to break her, but if she persists, she'll have to be culled
Hopefully someone has a better idea and that your hens stop!

 

[Hrusty]

The easiest way is to set up a game cam or something along those lines in there if you have it. Otherwise I'd maybe try a process of elimination. Have one bird sleep in a crate in the coop for a few days. If the feather picking stops, you'll know you probably only have one feather picker and it's probably her. If not, repeat with all 6 birds. If it doesn't stop, you might have multiple offenders on your hand. If you have the space and the crates, I'd start by jailing the ones with perfect feathers to see if they're really the ones doing it. If it still goes on, you know at least one of the victims is doing it herself. If that's the case, you're going to have to figure out who's doing it by procedurally jailing birds but by this point it's probably impractical to do so. If it does stop, release the birds one at a time and see if it starts up again. If it does, you know that bird is probably one of the problem hens and jail her. Then repeat with the remaining hens. I'd keep the offending hens jailed for a few weeks as a last, last resort to break her, but if she persists, she'll have to be culled
Hopefully someone has a better idea and that your hens stop!

Great ideas! I'd love to get them to stop, but if I can't this process would at least help me figure out who the offender/s are. Thank you!

 

[Mrs. K]

Truthfully, I would start culling some birds. This flock is not working well together, and for some unknown reason (after you have tried the general ones of parasites and space) they do not get along. Either let the victims go, or the bullies. You really have tried the general advice of separation. I don't think more separation is going to work. I might be tempted to do the pin less peepers on all of them. And I would leave them on a good 6 weeks. But really I think you need to let half of these go, and get some younger chicks.

A lot of people seem to think that chicks raised together will be BFF. But that often is not the case. I am not sure why we think that, there are a lot of people that I have known all my life, that I don't really like?

Thing is, I keep a flock, and I enjoy my flock. Birds come into and out of my flock for a variety of reason. Adding chicks, and removing older birds keeps my flock young and healthy. Some of these birds would be on my cull list. Being plucked alive is not a real great life in my opinion, and it rather destroys my enjoyment of the flock.

I would cull three - by re-homing them, or soup pot, and add some chicks. If they are laying birds, they might work out much better in someone else's flock.
Mrs K