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[Early Bird]

Hi, I am wondering if someone could suggest a possible cause.. and treatment for my girls' mysterious baldness. I regularly dust them with louse powder and put red mite powder in the cube although I have seen no traces of either pest and believe me I have looked carefully. They are also wormed regularly. None of the girls are broody and there is no obvious bullying, just regular pecking order disputes. However, they are all suffering from varying degrees of baldness from Sam (our matriarch) who has a very small patch just below the vent and has just started looking very scruffy around her neck feathers, Diamond and Pearl (gingernuts) both have bald undersides (all have slightly bald legs as well) but look fine everywhere else and poor Ella who looks almost oven ready. She has always been the most bald of them all and she is now completely bald from her vent right up over her breast and it has now spread to her lower back. It also doesn't appear to be a moult as it's been going on too long, getting worse and it's too early for them to be moulting (I think). She appears to be pulling the feathers out herself and eating them. I am becoming very concerned about this as nothing I have tried has worked. They all seem happy in themselves, feeding and drinking well, they are all laying and seem bright eyed and perky as they should be, but just with fewer feathers than they should have. They are fed Omlet layers pellets, mixed corn and have various treats of assorted greens and veg leftovers regularly, is it possible they are deficient in something important which might be causing this? Any advice gratefully received.

 

Dawn

[Egluntyne]

Could be depluming mite, which causes them to pull their feathers out.

 

There are various threads on the forum about this.

 

You could try bathing them in a pyrethrum based dog shampoo, which will kill the mite.

[Early Bird]

Thanks Egluntyne. I have a bottle of Johnson's dog flea shampoo which has Pyrethrum in it so I will try it. Could you tell me how dilute it needs to be, whether it needs to be rinsed off and whether there is any egg withdrawal time? Also, do I just dunk them in the bath (not heads of course) and give them a rub over to make sure it gets to the skin or is it more involved? Many thanks.

 

Dawn

[Plum]

Hi, may be worth giving her a supplement in case it's a deficiency as well.

[Early Bird]

Thanks Plum, I was considering doing that to be on the safe side. Any recommendations?

[Plum]

I use poultry spice which you put in food, or battles (not spoken of very highly) but I understand Lifeguard is really good so I would choose that if you can get hold of it.

[Early Bird]

Thanks. I did give them Poultry Spice during that horrible winter, they loved it so I shall try putting it in their food again. I've not heard of Lifeguard but I shall have a look for it. I've also heard that Apple Cider Vingar is good to put in their water so I shall try that as well.

[Plum]

I believe Cider Apple Vinegar is said to be good for ph of gut and keeping crop healthy but it may not make any difference with feathers. I tend to use different ones in rotation - cover all corners

[Early Bird]

A good idea. I was giving them Weetabix mixed with water to put their worming dose in, but they've got wise to that. They eat all the mash around the edges and leave the bit with the worming pellets on and when I tried mixing them in so they couldn't see them they just left it.. little mares. I shall try putting it in tuna this time, I defy them to resist that