Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[chooklady]

It will be 2 weeks next Monday since I bought my 2 new chickens. They all sleep together at night and all is well but if they are in the run then the 2 new ones go in the dog crate within the main run. If the birds are outside then they are free ranging together, which seems to be fine there is plenty of room and they can get out of the way if they need to. The established girls are not yet happy with the new ones in the run.

 

The Corton Blue is fairly young and is the one that gets picked on the most but not badly. There are quite a few of her feathers around, quite a few in the dog crate so they can't be from the old girls pecking her, my question is do young birds moult. She doesn't have many feathers around the base of her tail, instead of it looking conical shaped it looks more like a pheasant's tail. There are also softer body feathers around aswell, Having not experienced a chicken moulting as yet I don't quite know what happens and when. Would some of the anti-peck spray be a good idea just in case this is going on when I'm not looking. The Maran is very flighty but more able to cope as she is an older bird. I am concerned that they will not integrate is there anything else I can do to help?

 

Incidentally my dog has developed a friendship with the Corton Blue, he licks her, her poor feathers are always covered in dog slobber and she stays with him, she seems to know that the others chickens leave her alone if she is near him, animals are funny aren't they.

[Christian]

Hello Nicola.

 

Nice story about the dog and chicken friendship

 

They do moult at 12-16 weeks and a last moult before laying at 19-21 weeks or so. Keep an eye on her and make sure the others aren't pulling feathers though. One of mine did it when she thought I was looking!

 

All the best

[chooklady]

Thanks for that Christian, I'm was fairly sure it wasn't the others because they are not left alone long enough unsupervised, If I can't be out there with them then it just doesn't happen. What I have been doing is letting them all out in the garden at about 5pm and then letting them all go up to bed together then we don't have any problems.

Thanks

Nicola