Chicken bald back

[kelly34]

we got 6 POL about 16 mths ago and all was fine for a few months until we realised we had red mite. we treated the hens and the coop etc and finally got it under control, but since then i don't think they hens have been quite right. for the last few months they have stopped laying, they were laying an egg a day each every day even over the winter, now we may get 2 or 3 a day.

they all have missing feathers from the neck and bellies and one from her lower back, just above the tail. i think a couple are father pecking and i saw one eat a feather the other day!! the feathers look like they have been broken off mid shaft.

some have brown watery diarrhea and some i think are very under weight, very prominent keel bone. they have a layers pellet and no treats or s"Ooops, word censored!"s, as i cut them out thinking this was the cause of the diarrhea, but it hasn't helped and they have been wormed twice with the pellets that have flubenvet pre mixed.

we have hung up greens and cabbages for them but they don't seem very interested in them and hung up cd's (as we read they like shiny things to peck at)

i think there is at least one that is being bullied as she is very very thin. i separated her off today just to make sure she is eating as i put some cat food in (as a treat to boost their protein) i noticed she was kind of getting pushed away from it or was afraid of trying to get the food.

i was thinking of getting some anti peck spray and some boredom buster treats to hang up and a tonic to give them a boost but don't really know which ones are good. can anyone recommend any? and suggest anything else i can do??

sorry for long post but really need some help!!!

thank you!!!!

[mollyripkim]

Oh dear it's horrible when they get poorly, hopefully someone with more experience will be along but in the meantime you say that have been wormed twice in 16 months with flubernet, I think most worm every three months so a heavy worm burden could be part of the problem. Also are you sure the mites have gone as they will feed on your girls at night.

I wonder if the feather pecking is because they are under the weather, I think I read that somewhere, it might be worth having separate feeding stations so they can all feed without being chased off as the top chick can only guard one at a time! How big is their run, boredom will affect their behaviour too.

There are all sorts of tonics, I use ACV every so often in their water, the powder in their food in the winter and cod liver oil if one is having a moult.

2 or 3 eggs a day isn't bad from 6 hens, I guess the break from egg laying wont do them any harm.

Not sure about the diarrhoea, that's obviously not good, hopefully someone will be able to advise.

For treats mine to mad for mealworms and they have a handful of mixed corn at night to entice them back in the run.

Good luck.

[auntielizzie]

Hmmm, well I have been keeping chickens for two years now and still consider myself a bit of a newby - it seems there is always something new to learn and some new challenge the chickens will present you with

 

You don't say what size of coop you have, but as you have six hens and maybe a bully hen or two, do you have more than one feeding station available I would think you need to have at least two separate feeding stations and two separate water feeders. I have four hens and although they do share one feeder (a round hanging gravity feeder so they can space themselves around the edge rather than a grub where they have to be very close to each other - so avoids squabbles), they have two water stations (glugs) and also a water bottle (like you use for rabbits) which I put water and apple cider vinegar in about once or twice a month.

 

My girls have definitely not been laying so well in this hot weather, so I don't think that helps for a start, but if you have been keeping chickens for 16 months and they were POL when you got them, that means they are around 2 years old so maybe getting a little older and laying less (as I said, I'm not an expert so this might not be a reason for drop off in egg production, especially as you say that previously they went completely off lay).

 

Apart from making sure they have plenty of good quality layers pellets always available; if you are worried about them being a bit under-nourished, perhaps you could offer them the occasional tin of tuna and some mixed corn in the late afternoon (never before they have eaten plenty of pellets earlier in the day). I believe the odd pot of natural yoghurt can help to give them a bit of a "clear out" too. I give mine a teaspoon of cod liver oil in their food about once a week or two (apparently this helps them with absorption of calcium for egg shells). I also give mine a handful of mealworms every evening to get them back in the coop from their "FR" area before they put themselves to bed later. You could try giving them some poultry nutridrops occasionally. It's a bit difficult to encourage giving too many treats, as that in itself can become a bit of a problem as they will take advantage and that in itself can become a bit of a problem , but generally chickens seem to like sweetcorn and pasta and left over cooked vegetables, fruit and lots of other things as I am sure you have seen on the forum. Bokashi bran can help with poo problems too. I don't buy it all the time, but have found the girls enjoy that as well.

 

Regarding the feather loss - I have a hen who has a similar sounding feather loss to yours. I am hoping when they have their moults that she will feather up again. She also has a bare tummy but that is because she has been a little bit broody and I have to keep taking her off the eggs in the nest Her breast bone is quite prominent too.

 

Do you have room for a dustbath in your coop/run? I have a container with a mixture of play sand, soft earth and ashes which they use. My coop has one roosting bar, which they like - is there room in yours to make something like that so they can jump up and sit a bit higher up? The only other thing they have is one of those treat balls that I fill up sometimes and they peck it round the run

 

Other than that, mine seem to love having clean bedding as often as possible - especially when I do a total clear out - sometimes that seems to give them a bit of a boost.

 

I don't know if any of this will be useful and hopefully others will be along with more ideas/advice soon. Sorry, as usual, once I start I just can't stop............ Liz

[sadietoo]

I've been keeping chickens for four years now and I still consider myself a newbie. Like others have said, if you think more than the average bullying is happening, then extra feed stations are a really good idea. Also if you think boredom is a problem you could switch from pellets to a good quality mash which will keep them occupied eating for longer. I also routinely offer mine a small bowl of fishmeal (very smelly but they love it - it always gets eaten!) as recommended by our local poultry shop. I chuck a clove of peeled garlic in their galvanised water drinker, and once in a while I put a splash of ACV in their plastic glug. The garlic is a good antibacterial and may help with tummy upsets as will probiotics like Avipro in the water , or just live natural yoghurt.

I would check that you have got the red mite under control. One of my girls got proper poorly before I realised we had an infestation, (after we came back from holiday ). To get her appetite going again (I thought she was on the way out) I tried her on wholemeal bread soaked in olive oil with a splash of red wine on top of chopped hard-boiled egg (as I posted elsewhere) and she is right as rain now! If you have a girl who you think is particularly under the weather,that might be worth a try and also tuna as others have suggested is really good when they are depleted. My vet recommended those suet pellets for wild birds as an extra for a girl who needs to gain some weight - it's keeping them away from the other gannets that's the problem! As I've had no success with bringing poorly girls indoors to eat (too many distractions/noise etc), I've taken to shutting the others out of the run so that they get the food to themselves for at least 20 minutes, after which its a free for all.

 

I hope things improve for you soon. x

[kelly34]

well things didn't go too well since i wrote this post. we lost one, we do have red mite again so we are treating that and also worming the chickens with flubenvet and also giving them a vitamin powder in their feed and in their water too. can red mite kill??

[gavclojak]

From what I understand red mite does not kill but lowers immunity and makes the girls more prone to and less able to fight off opportunistic infections.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Sorry to hear you lost one of your girls

 

As Gavclojak says, it's more a case of making them susceptible to other life-threatening things. What kind of coop do you have and what are you using for the red mite? I've been lucky (so far) not to have had it but wonder if others may have suggestions for some different methods you could try?

[kelly34]

We have a wooden coop. Last time we steamed it and used poultry shield and DE. We have been using the DE when we have been cleaning the coop but ran out of poultry shield so that with the warm wet weather has caused an increased in numbers. Only discovered the mite so was planning to get more poultry shield unless there is something better and quicker acting?

[kelly34]

Oh we are planning to paint the coop this time as read would help seal up some cracks and crevices.

[chickencam]

Once you have red mite in a wooden coop it is a nightmare to keep on top of it. We made our own from plywood and painted it and filled gaps and we still had a problem, because we used roof felt on the roof. We had to strip that off a couple of years ago and pretty much dismantle the house repaint and refill the holes. We have detachable nest box n the back that we take down once a week and clean off the mites where they congregate and spray with Total Mite Kill pink spray.

 

We have never had a severe infestation again but have to be constantly vigilant,it has been a bad year for red mite with the warm weather, we even had some in the Eglu, which we took apart and jet washed before our new girls moved in.

 

It could be that all of this has coincided with their natural first moult too, which will also put them out of sorts, they often lose their neck and tail feathers first. I give mine a tonic in their water when they are moulting, I think it is a Netex product called total moult solution or something similar, it smells vile, but seems to help them through.

[kelly34]

I checked the coop late last night when it was dark, took a powerful torch and I was surprised at how few mites I saw. No where near the numbers we had before, in fact there were hardly any to be seen. Dusted it and the birds down anyway. Have no idea what's up with them. I don't think they've had a proper moult, the feathers they've lost are due to feather picking I think.

[Millie-Annie]

We had a red mite infestation a year or two ago. What my husband did was paint the inside of the hutch with PVC glue and then pebbledash it was diatoms. We have had no problems for about 2 years. Today when I cleaned them out I found red mite under the nesting box, but that was because we had allowed a build up of wood chippings which had bridged the gap between the plastic trays. We have burnt all the bedding, covered the floor in diatoms and just put woodchippings in the trays none on the floor of the box.

 

Diatoms have worked brilliantly for us

[jackian]

We had a bad attack in our wooden coups this summer and it is one of the worst problems we have had in 3 years .

We tried every thing cleaning ,spraying with red mite solution ,diotrom every where and in the end power washing with no solution ..The wooden coup was soaking wet with no chance of drying out and still the dreaded red mite .In the end I put a hammer to it and it went to our local dump.

Meanwhile the girls were in temp accommodation while I ordered a new coup .We ended up with a great recycled plastic one and the temp one is also up the dump hopefully not with the red mite being recycled ..

This red mite was one of the worst chicken things I have dealt with. .

[PoachedPlease]

Has anyone ever tried vacuuming the red mite out of the coop?

 

Xx

[KimmyCustard]

Ive never experienced it but have also heard that using a blow torch or one of those small torches used in cooking and burning the mite off, using it over the roosting bars and in the crevices also helps to kill the little horrors. Then make a paste of diatom and water and shove it in all the corners and cracks in case of future infestation.