StarviewAcres
Hatching
- Mar 4, 2025
- 6
- 2
- 8
I have 3 hens roughly 10 months old (1 Lavender Orpington, 1 Easter Egger, 1 ISA Brown.) All are laying, eating, drinking, and pooping consistently and normally and show no other signs of disease or distress.
At first I thought it was feather picking on the back of the smallest hen (the Easter Egger), so we put a saddle on her in November. The biggest perpetrator was the Orpington, who was picking and eating the feathers. The feather loss moved to the Easter Egger’s thigh feathers/wings after we put the saddle on. We put pinless peepers on the Orpington in December 2024 and that seemed to help, but the Orpington then started pulling out her own chest feathers leaving a large bald patch so we removed them in January 2025 (assuming it was due to the stress of the peepers.) At that point we also removed the saddle from the Easter Egger as it didn’t seem to be helping.
Recently I started to notice partial feather (almost like the ends have been chomped off?) and upper layer feather loss on the back and neck of the ISA brown, and the bald patch on the chest of the Orpington persists – once the feathers start to regrow, either she or the other hens are pulling them out. All 3 girls look pretty raggedy on the necks, backs (near the tail), and thigh feathers. It’s not a molt.
For context, they are in a 40 sq ft coop with an attached 72 sq ft run. Pine shaving bedding in the coop; mixture of straw, sand, rocks, and pea gravel in the run. They get both a 22% protein pellet and a 16% protein crumble. Treats are black soldier fly larvae and an ancient grain and blue corn variety of scratch. They love spinach and I give them some kitchen scraps. I try to supplement protein once a week with scrambled eggs or tuna. They get as much free range time as I can give them which is sometimes only an hour a day in the winter (and not at all if they won't go out in the snow.) In the summer they get far more.
Behavior wise, there were 3 nesting boxes but the Orpington basically bullied the Easter Egger out of the nesting boxes – whichever box the Easter Egger was in, the Orpington would kick her out; if the Easter Egger switched boxes, the Orpington would get up and kick her out of that one too. The Easter Egger currently lays on the coop floor under the poop shelf; the other two lay in the nesting box space. If the Easter Egger is trying to lay and they see her, they will go peck at her, but it’s not causing any damage in terms of vent picking or other wounds (she gives them the dinosaur growl if they come near.) We did have supplemental lighting in the coop over the winter (no more than 14 hrs per day) but once I read that that could be contributing to stress I turned it off and just accepted the slowdown in eggs.
I have been all over the internet, I have asked neighbors who are seasoned chicken keepers for their thoughts and recommendations, I have tried multiple tactics to manage this symptom and nothing seems to help. We treated the chickens, coop, and run with Elector PSP in January and it does seem to have slowed down but not stopped completely. Is this just a bad feather picking and bullying issue, a parasite issue, or something else entirely? Has anyone else experienced similar? I’m trying to be a good steward of my hens and I feel like I’m failing colossally. Appreciate any insights or recommendations you can share, it’s scary to ask the internet but I want my hens to have the best life possible.
Photos were taken March 2025. I am aware of the frostbite damage on their combs, that's a separate issue that we are working to address.
At first I thought it was feather picking on the back of the smallest hen (the Easter Egger), so we put a saddle on her in November. The biggest perpetrator was the Orpington, who was picking and eating the feathers. The feather loss moved to the Easter Egger’s thigh feathers/wings after we put the saddle on. We put pinless peepers on the Orpington in December 2024 and that seemed to help, but the Orpington then started pulling out her own chest feathers leaving a large bald patch so we removed them in January 2025 (assuming it was due to the stress of the peepers.) At that point we also removed the saddle from the Easter Egger as it didn’t seem to be helping.
Recently I started to notice partial feather (almost like the ends have been chomped off?) and upper layer feather loss on the back and neck of the ISA brown, and the bald patch on the chest of the Orpington persists – once the feathers start to regrow, either she or the other hens are pulling them out. All 3 girls look pretty raggedy on the necks, backs (near the tail), and thigh feathers. It’s not a molt.
For context, they are in a 40 sq ft coop with an attached 72 sq ft run. Pine shaving bedding in the coop; mixture of straw, sand, rocks, and pea gravel in the run. They get both a 22% protein pellet and a 16% protein crumble. Treats are black soldier fly larvae and an ancient grain and blue corn variety of scratch. They love spinach and I give them some kitchen scraps. I try to supplement protein once a week with scrambled eggs or tuna. They get as much free range time as I can give them which is sometimes only an hour a day in the winter (and not at all if they won't go out in the snow.) In the summer they get far more.
Behavior wise, there were 3 nesting boxes but the Orpington basically bullied the Easter Egger out of the nesting boxes – whichever box the Easter Egger was in, the Orpington would kick her out; if the Easter Egger switched boxes, the Orpington would get up and kick her out of that one too. The Easter Egger currently lays on the coop floor under the poop shelf; the other two lay in the nesting box space. If the Easter Egger is trying to lay and they see her, they will go peck at her, but it’s not causing any damage in terms of vent picking or other wounds (she gives them the dinosaur growl if they come near.) We did have supplemental lighting in the coop over the winter (no more than 14 hrs per day) but once I read that that could be contributing to stress I turned it off and just accepted the slowdown in eggs.
I have been all over the internet, I have asked neighbors who are seasoned chicken keepers for their thoughts and recommendations, I have tried multiple tactics to manage this symptom and nothing seems to help. We treated the chickens, coop, and run with Elector PSP in January and it does seem to have slowed down but not stopped completely. Is this just a bad feather picking and bullying issue, a parasite issue, or something else entirely? Has anyone else experienced similar? I’m trying to be a good steward of my hens and I feel like I’m failing colossally. Appreciate any insights or recommendations you can share, it’s scary to ask the internet but I want my hens to have the best life possible.
Photos were taken March 2025. I am aware of the frostbite damage on their combs, that's a separate issue that we are working to address.
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