Many backyard poulet owners assume theirchickensare molting when the razzing lose their feathers , yet it ’s wise to reckon at other reasons for feather loss as well . It can be difficult to state if backyard chickens are in moulting , because many of them molt at different prison term and in different way . Some turn a loss their feathers a little at a time and spring up them back a little at a time . Some suffer all their feathers and stay bare for four or five months . If you could rule out everything else , then you could blame the feather going on molt .
Diseases & Parasites
If feather loss is flock - wide , and all of your chicken have lost their feather , diseasessuch as parasites or poultry pox could be the cause . Chickens can be infested with dirt ball , speck and fleas . Lice have to live on the body , so appear for louse at the pedestal of the feathers . Fleas and mite do n’t have to stay on the organic structure . Red mites , for instance , will feed during the night and hide during the day . You will see a powder pull — it looks like white cotton fiber — on barn floors or walls where the mites obscure . If you ca n’t see parasites on the wimp , look for preindication of damage , such as start and bite - like lesions on the peel . you may part the feathers and appear for parasite feces , or “ turd , ” ordinarily around the venter or the rear . If leech are your problem , clean the coop and remove any cobweb , and then treat the henhouse and the birds with a domestic fowl insecticide dust or spray .
Fowl pox looks like pimples — big wild one with bleeding and scabbing . It ’s usually on the unfeathered portions of the skin — facial expression , volcano , sometimes where the unfeathered percentage of the leg joins the feather portion . There is no treatment for poultry pox , as it is a viral disease . The lesion can be kept clean and free of rainfly if they are in a raw area such as around the eyes . Fowl syphilis can be prevented by vaccination .
Lack of Protein
One more cause of flock - wide feather loss is a meaning reduction in protein intake or a modification of diet . feather and their point of origin , follicles , rely on high protein . batch victuals is of the essence to plumage health .
Bird-on-Bird Aggression
If the plume passing is in some birds and not others , it ’s most likely plume - pecking . Chickens , by nature , are fast-growing to other chickens , no matter their infinite or living accommodations . The closer the strain is to the original jungle fowl , the more belligerent the birds . A chicken exerts its dominance by get on the back of another chicken , grabbing the neck and back feathering with its beak , and removing feathers with its toenail . This is also the way that roosters pair with hens .
If the skin is n’t broken and you are n’t too upset by the feather loss , you may just have it go . If the skin is damage or you want the pecking to stop , Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree - dress sealant works great . It acts as a second skin while the plumage raise back and the skin heals . It ’s garish and can be found at any garden center or ironware memory board . Because the tissue paper under the peel or damaged skin is moist , you might have to layer it on pretty heavily . It will stain your tegument and your wear , so wear old clothes . The other welfare is that the sealant is black , and crybaby are n’t attract to melanize . But if a chicken does peck , the sealer will stain its neb , and you ’ll find the aggressor in yourcoop .
Blinders work very well for cease aggressiveness . Available at poultry supplier , blinders sit on the bird ’s nose and are secured by a bowling pin that goes through the naris ( nasal hole ) , from one side to the other . The nasal septum is really thin in a birdie , so it ’s not painful . The winker are red , and the colour hit the skirt less fast-growing .
