Chickens loosing feathers

I have 15 chickens, had 23..... long story. I have noticed that some of the chickens peck at each other, and many have missing feathers, one in particular is almost bald. Does this sound like more than just pecking each other for ex. diesease? I hope there is some kind of thing I can do to stop this crazy behavior, if in fact it is the pecking on each other. This is my first chicken round up, btw building the chicken coup was a difficult task... whew I will post pics when I learn my camera a bit better. I welcome any and all help.

Thank you
Rick

Much pecking behavior is perfectly normal. And if the one or two who are "almost bald" are "bald" mostly on their backs (between their wings) and maybe on the back of their heads... that's either due to mating behavior (if you have a rooster) or also they're simply the "low hen" on the totem pole.

There is also a stage called the "molt" when they lose their feathers and regrow brand new ones. Some hens can look practically naked at the height of the molt- these, in fact, are usually your better laying hens, because the amount of time they are off egg laying (they don't lay during molting) is determined by how long it takes them to complete the molt. One who drops all her feathers in a few days time and then regrows them all at once will be back to laying faster than one which loses one or two main (wing) feathers a week...

Birds CAN get parasites... pick one up, go out in the sunlight or someplace where you can see well, part the smaller feathers on her back and breast, and look at her skin. If she has lice, they'll show up as small moving "dirt". Heavily infested birds will have visible bites... basically irritated looking skin.

If they are eating well, laying well (for their stage of life) and their skin isn't bloody or badly irritated, it's likely they are perfectly fine.

Summerthyme

Thank you for the excellent input, the chickens are approx 10 to 12 weeks, and medium size compared to the full grown ones Ive seen, so they arent laying yet, and they are all pullets, so it must be the pecking order deal. Ill check for lice tommorow, also been feeding them starter, was told I could do that until they lay thier first egg, not sure when that will be, hope soon. Should I feed them scratch yet, and when should I build nests? I also was wondering, should I even get a rooster, it seems like a good thing, but Im really not sure what use it would be if Im not raising chickens to hatch? Should i raise chickens to hatch? Alot of questions I know, I have so much to learn.

Thank you
Rick

Oh, they're young ones... yep, almost certainly pecking order.

Yes, you can feed starter (well.. actually, you probably want to find some "chick grower" now... it's a little lower in protein and probably is just a bit cheaper. Also, if the starter is medicated, you don't need that any longer... and you want them off any medicated feeds for a bit before they start laying.)

When they'll start depends to a great extent on their breed, and seasonal issues.. but you shouldn't have the "seasonal issues" stuff because of when they were hatched. Most "laying breeds" (ie; leghorns, and other smaller white egg- layers) start laying at around 4 1/2 months.... 18 weeks. Heavy breeds- the brown egg layers- tend to take 2-6 weeks longer to start. It's individual, as well... some mature quicker than others.

You can feed scratch at any time... make sure if you do they either can get outside or you feed grit (necessary for them to be able to grind whole grains in their crops).

Nests should be ready for them to use by the time they're 16 weeks or so. You only need one nest for every 4-6 birds... but even if you provide 1 nest for every hen, you'll find that they choose one or two and EVERYONE lays in those. Even to the extent where you may find 4 hens in the same one, at the same time! LOL!

Roosters... you don't NEED one. They serve no useful purpose if you don't intend to hatch eggs. They're one more mouth to feed, and they tend to be noisy. On the other hand, they can be "insurance" that you would have fertile eggs to hatch in the event you couldn't simply mail order new ones, and they tend to be protective... although not always effective, they will try to protect the hens.

(I'll add that if you have small children, roosters can be dangerous. An aggressive one can fly right in the face of a toddler or preschooler. Something to consider)

Now, if any of them are getting pecked to the point where they are injured, that needs to be stopped. Sometimes you can stop most picking (cannibalism) by providing a little more protein... if you're not squeamish, road kill (yeah, I know... yuck!) is actually darned good chicken feed. Some folks swear by adding a bit of apple cider vinegar in their water... maybe 1 tablespoon per gallon.

There are products with pine tar in them which you can smear on any actual injuries (or any spots which are so bare that if they keep pecking, they will break the skin). It apparently looks like blood to the other birds, and tastes terrible.

You can also simply snip a tiny bit of the upper beak off... use heavy human nail clippers or those "nail scissors" they sell for heavy toe-nails. You are just blunting it... but it helps keep them from grabbing skin in their beaks and basically pinching some flesh off. I've had to do this with a couple batches of Cornish-cross birds, which I know were more crowded than I like to keep them. Birds which aren't crowded, not overheated and have some access to the outdoors (in other words, aren't bored out of their tiny skulls) tend to not peck much. However, they do establish that pecking order, no matter if you've got the Chicken Shangri-La there!

Only you can decide if you want/need to try hatching chicks. Depending on what breed(s) you have, you may need an incubator. Some breeds are inherently broody (Fred's Buff Orpingtons, for example), and occasionally you'll get a broody hen from a breed which is considered "non-setter" (which means basically that they bred the broody instinct out of them). I had a Golden Comet hen (which is a sex linked production hybrid- they are most definitely supposed to be non-setters) sneak out and raise two broods per summer up in our haymow, every year for 4 years. Someone forgot to tell HER she was a "non-setter"!!

Questions are fine... all of us had to learn sometime. I can laugh now at how many times I went back to some of my basic books at first, about 20 years ago. Don't hesitate to ask... someone here will probably have the answer!

Summerthyme

Jeepers Summerthyme, how DO you fit all this knowledge into your brain?????

Thank you so much for all you add here.

Thank you Summerthyme for another excellent and informative post.

On thing I've noticed with the rooster we have now is that he calls the hens into the coop well before dark, much better than the old one that waited until it was getting dark to call them in which meant going out about a half hour after it got dark to close the outside door to the coop. If you decide to get a rooster now I would suggest getting a full grown one from a small animal swap or something so he isn't the little one in the flock.

summerthyme,


I am so pleased with your help, and thankfull. I will get to work asap, and figure this out, I have some solid solutions to build on now, you are a gem.

Thank you
Rick

I am full swing into this now, and was wondering how often do the chickens need to be fed? Should I just put a feeder in the pen to dispense whatever they want like the water dispenser? They finally killed one of thier own, I left it in there to be finished off kinda like the road kill suggestion Summerthhyme gave me, and it appears to have worked. Ill be building nests soon.

They definitely do best on a "free choice feeding" system. It's the closest thing to "natural" conditions as you'll get, and if you have been only feeding them a limited amount (they haven't had feed in front of them 24/7), it may well be a big part of the pecking problem. Laying hens and meat birds EXCEPT for the CornishX hybrids don't seem to overeat... except for a couple of crippled White Rock hens I had a few years back, I've never seen a laying hen get fat. Older birds which no longer lay many eggs will have some fat in the body cavity when you butcher them, but not much. The exception are the Cornish X hybrids- some strains are worse than others, but they are literally "eating machines" and if you leave the high protein grower grain out 24 hours a day some strains will literally die of heart attacks, and many others will "outgrow their legs"- gain weight so fast their joints won't hold up.

Definitely put a feeder in there and keep it full.. or at least, keep feed in it. I keep two in my laying pen... one full of layer mash, one full of cracked corn, or other grains. I also toss some scratch (whole or cracked grains) into the bedding... just a handful or so... it gets them to scratch around looking for it, and in the process, they aerate the bedding nicely.

You may well have to do some beak trimming if they've killed one... some of them get the taste for blood and become habitual killers (obviously, THEY don't see it that way... it's not a moral issue for them! But the effects are the same... the weaker/lower on the pecking order birds will be injured and killed by the ones who figured out that they can get "fresh meat" that way).

If you can, toss them extras like weeds you've pulled from the garden, trimmings from the kitchen, etc... boredom is often a big part of the pecking problem. Whole corn on the cob (dried field corn) keeps them busy pecking it off, too.

When they are mature, you can figure on them needing about 4 ounces of grain per day per bird. That's just a general rule of thumb to give you an idea if you've been badly underfeeding them... and a good way to figure how much feed you want to keep on hand as "preps" if you think that way.

hopefully you won't lose any more!

Summerthyme