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Trapper

It seems we are all suffering from feather plucking

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I have been a member of this forum for a good number of weeks and have read with excitement things that are happening to people and their flooks.

 

However it seems to me that over the past few week and I include myself in this, a larger number of people are complaining about feather plucking and in house cannabalisum than usual.

 

Is it due to the time of year?

 

Are all of our chickens of the same age and that it is an inherated thing?

 

I'm sure that someone out there will have the answer but it does seem that in the past few weeks the problem has featured more and more on this forum.

 

My last posting was Be Aware Don't put too may chickens in and I had a hugh responce. and so did others with the heading of Feather Plucking, etc

 

 

Trapper

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For something that is apparently 'rare' there seems to be a heck of alot of it going on doesn't there? :roll:

 

Like I said in a previous post-I had to rehome 2 girls due to their feather pulling-blood drawing ways and now after a few months of peace and harmony, one of the new hens has started stripping the legs of the other two. :evil:

 

It's just about driving me mad now. I love my hens and wouldn't want to be without them but I certainly didn't expect all of this trouble!!! :?

 

Makes the whole thing a nightmare and it is not nice to watch. I have no idea why this happens or how to stop it for good but I am now going to have to start all over again with the sprays, bumper bits etc. Not my idea of fun!!! :x

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Have you all tried the usual boredom busters like hanging up greens for them to peck at, Pekka Blocks, scattering scratch in the run for them to rootle for, dust baths, cd's for them to listen to....er...sorry....peck at.

 

A few branches or long for the to perch on for a change is also quite useful.

 

:lol:

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Mine have various cages and balls stuffed with greens to peck at, branches to climb on, a shelf to climb on, CD's-basically you name it we've tried it although we haven't tried the Ukadex spray yet. Even though people have complained over the smell of it-I am willing to give it a go!! :wink:

 

Mine also have a dustbath, corn thrown into the run, whole cabbages to peck at etc etc etc.

 

Just peeved that I had to get rid of two and now a new hen has started. I have no idea what else I can do to stop it and constantly wonder if I'm very unlucky or if I'm doing something wrong yet haven't realised! :roll:

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I got some anti peck spray from Omlet it seems to work, apparently tastes really bitter & the hens don't like it so leave eachother alone, spray them all when they are snuggled up for the night, make sure you dont get it in their eyes

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There does seem to be a lot of bad chicken behaviour about at the moment.

I actually had to stop looking at the 'Chickens' part of the forum at the begining of the week as I found myself getting really upset and paranoid, I am also thinking of adding to my flock and I am starting to wonder whether it is such a good idea :(

 

Tessa

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I have noticed a lot more incidents of this too. I had a problem last year and it didn't seem to be so prevelant. Although, it is not the most accurate way to judge how prevelant it is, as we don't know how many people haven't experienced it.

 

I have been reading up about it online, lots of interesting articles. Some suggest that it is mis-placed forging behaviour and others that it is due to a protein deficiency!

 

There was also one I read suggesting that it can be a learned behaviour, so it could be that if one of your girls has done it the others follow suit? I am currenlty "upgrading" my run to include more perches and things to stop any boredom.

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For plucking to happen, you need a combination of one very strong hen and at least one very submissive hen, and you are more likely to get this combination if you have a larger group of hens: so I think numbers do come into it.

 

When I gave my cannibal hen away to a farmer, he stated categorically that hens in a confined space need to have their beaks clipped. I would qualify this and say that there are certain hens which cannot be kept in a confined space unless they have their beaks clipped. (I hate to see it done, but it's not as nasty as letting one hen eat another one alive.)

 

My submissive hen used to lie down to allow the strong one to pluck her feathers out and injure her: she never made any attempt to run away.

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