Only one chicken loosing feathers

[Vickydolittle]

I have 15 chickens. Yesterday, I noticed that all the sudden one of my chickens went from having very fluffy feathers to loosing all tail feathers (all vent feathers are still there), but her back (maybe saddle?) Feathers are gone and a little more up the way of the back. However, it looks like a fairly clean area (minus just a couple scabs from plucking? Definitely looks like closed wound). None of my other chickens look like this. Their hatch date was last spring (I want to say may) could this be the start of their first molt? I wasn't seeing any alarming signs of bugs/mites and I also just did a very recent deep clean of their coop/nesting boxes. I don't have a picture of said hen because I had to use both hands to be able to look/see. She won't let me look and take pictures (don't get handled often but will tolerate it sometimes).

 

[paddock36]

Do you have a rooster in your flock? This could be as a result of being his favorite, but yes a molt is possible too.

 

[Vickydolittle]

Do you have a rooster in your flock? This could be as a result of being his favorite, but yes a molt is possible too.

I forgot to mention that, but I do not have a rooster. I remember when they were loosing their second set of baby feathers I was getting so scared that something was too wrong and got all kinds of stuff to fix them because they looked rough, but all it was was them loosing feathers/getting in more adult feathers.

 

[paddock36]

I forgot to mention that, but I do not have a rooster. I remember when they were loosing their second set of baby feathers I was getting so scared that something was too wrong and got all kinds of stuff to fix them because they looked rough, but all it was was them loosing feathers/getting in more adult feathers.

A dominant hen can cause the same issue too, but it sounds like probably just starting to molt since no sign of mites.

 

[dearmeghann]

Our easter egger is showing signs of molting as well! They're all about a year old - no rooster. She hasn't been laying eggs, so we thought she had a calcium issue. Now, her back is bare. We haven't seen any mites or lice on the birds. We moved them to a bigger coop and thought she was just stressed out or having reproduction issues.