AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Hi! I'm new on here but thought i would give it a crack.
I was back home on the weekend (country vic) and noticed my parents chooks were looking very ordinary! Some of them had no feathers at all around their necks, chest and bottom. Some even were missing a lot of their wing feathers!

For the last 20 years we have had 25-30 chooks for eggs and only of late this problem has developed. In particular it only seems to be affecting our ISA Brown chooks, they are pulling each others/or their own feathers out! Some of them look horrible and going into winter its surely not ideal.

Does anyone know what could be causing this behaviour?? There are a few black ones and they do not have the problem....

Cheers for any help!

http://www.ehow.com/how_5446970_stop-ch ... cking.html

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

More space
A bale of hay
Cabbage on a string
A source of animal protein
Salt

Step 1Feather "picking" is generally caused by one of several factors: boredom, lack of space, or dietary deficiency.

Step 2 Chickens love being outsideChickens need adequate room to roam and things to do. Some breeds stand confinement better than others, but all need room to run around and things to peck and scratch at. If they are not given things to peck at outside, they may turn on each other and start plucking feathers from their flockmates. Feathers are tasty, and have a certain amount of protein. Once picking starts, it can escalate into pecking, with the victim winding up bloody, injured, and possibly even dead.

Step 3 The first thing to do is to give your birds room to roam. Ideally this means outside in a grassy area where they can chase bugs and scratch in the dirt. But even a closed pen will work as long as it's big enough. You will read that 4 square feet per bird is enough space, but really, that's just for at night when they're at roost. Figure at least twice that for a bird that will be content during the day.

Step 4 Some birds are kept in cages, which is not idealIf your birds must be confined, give them something to play with. A cabbage hung from a string, a bale of hay to rip up (alfalfa is best), some sort of tasty treat that will distract them works best.

Step 5 As well, you must look at what you are feeding your flock. Chickens that do not get adequate amounts of animal protein in their diets will find it elsewhere, sometimes by eating eggs, sometimes by eating each other! Vegetarian chicken feeds are generally not adequate for most breeds, especially those birds who cannot range for bugs and mice and other sources of protein. Chickens are not vegetarians, they are omnivores, and as such need animal proteins (specifically natural sources of the amino acids lysine and methionine) to be healthy.

Step 6 Dry cat foodIf you can't find a chicken feed that has animal protein in it, you can supplement in a number of ways, including dry cat food with at least 28% protein (about a ¼ cup full per bird per day), cooked ground beef, or fish meal (note that too much fish meal will flavor the eggs, so use it sparingly.)

Step 7 If your birds must be confined for some reason, lowering the lights will sometimes help with picking, as will switching to a red light source. But confinement is not ideal.

Step 8 Table salt for the Salt CureAnd if all else fails, you can use the Salt Cure outlined in the Wisconsin Experiment Station Bulletin #455. In it we are told to put 1 tablespoon of salt per gallon of water in the flocks water for just one morning. Replace with fresh water in the afternoon. Repeat in three days. This, plus the other remedies above should cure all feather picking.

That was really interesting..thank you

Ok well they have a pen that is about 4*8 metres and a roosting/laying shed attached to it which is 4*3m.
They are let our to roam at lunch every day and have a paddock of about 4 acres they wander about it. So they get 6 hrs in winter and 8+ in summer free range.
They are fed layer pellets and wheat (twice a day) along with all the scraps from the kitchen (inc meat) plus any left over veggies from the garden so they have never really wanted for anything in that regard.
It seemed to start out of nowhere which is why it was surprising...we had had brown isa's for maybe 5 years before this started occuring and nothing really changed as far as I know. They have always been a bigger pain asthey get in the garden and make a mess!

I had a similar problem and it turned our one hen was acting as a alpha male and pecking the other hens as soon as I took her out the plucking stoped