Feather problem

'Scuse me if this has been covered before, but my hens have been losing most of their feathers, mostly from the rear forwards. One of them even looks like she has been plucked for the stew pot. At first I thought they were moulting, but it has gone on too long and they do seem to lay pretty regularly. Then I thought maybe Brewster the rooster was being too rough on them, but even Brewster has lost some feathers. Mites? My grandson helped me dust them with mite-dust a week ago, and there hasn't been any change. 6 are Rhode Islands, 2 are New Hampsires. Both New Hampshires went through this, first, but one of them is fully feathered again.

Any ideas?

Probably the roo and he is loosing them from the excitement (as haystack puts it). Roos can also loose feathers from rubbing against things. But if they look plucked on their backs near the rear it is usually the roos fault.

Agree with smedgekles.............and if they lose some on the head, that is also from the rooster grabbing them there.

Sorry ladies, but Roosterdom there are no love handles, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

OK!!! as usual the ladies are right!! It's the guy's fault. They need some gentleman lessons. It's weird but not all roosters are so rough like that and I'm not sure why. Hay

Loved all your answers! As to Brewster, he definitely pays them a lot of attention. Last year I made "chicken aprons" for them but the hens scratched them off right away. Maybe I should put Brewster out in the back yard but I have 2 dogs and 2 cats -- hmmmm, Brewster is pretty warlike, he might hurt them! LOL

It all comes down to the personality of the Roo i have had some that were TOO rough and removed from the hens while others were perfect gentlemen.
My advice has always been the same there is no reason IMHO that you should have a roo that harms your hens.

Feather loss on hens could be from a over bearing roo tearing out their feathers.
Could be a summer molt when it's really hot mine lose some feathers i have always thought it was to help cool them.
Young chickens go thru several molts in their first year until they get their true adult feathers
A diet high in corn or grain products can also cause feather loss chickens need protein and if they don't get enough or they consume more of empty calories in treats it shows in their feathers.

Picking is also common and you don't always see it happen mine have picked at each other on the roost at night before.

These are all the ones i could think of for feather loss {:~)

Hmmmmm, what kind of chicken is Brewster, if you know what is? We had some we couldn't be sure as to what they were, but they were nasty. Wish they had been around when the neighbor dog payed a visit and killed the only leghorn that we had that had flew out of her run to roam.
As for the cats, I would be worried about the cats with him. Brewster would probably chase them. We have never had problems with cats. Our leghorns walked one out of the yard once. It was so funny to watch.

Brewster is also a Rhode Island Red. He doesn't attack me as much as he used to but he attacks anyone else who goes into their fenced yard. I used to have an Araucana rooster, a big peace-loving, gorgeous hunk named Bucky -- but the bobcats got him. This was before I fenced the top of the pen. If I can coax Brewster out of the pen and into the yard, I could try it and if he and the dogs & cats could coexist maybe I could let the hens out. I think they'd be happier but it sure wouldn't do my flower gardens much good. Long ago I had banties, and they totally free-ranged in my backyard and I gave up on flowers. I had the cutest little dog, fluffy white, who apparently had some "pointer" blood in his very mixed heritage, because he would actually point the chickens and the black rabbit we had who roamed the yard. Talk about a funny sight!

We have an ameracana rooster how is very friendly too. He has never attacked. And we have one that is a cross with a leghorn, also never has attacked anyone.
The nasty black ones we had would attack anyone, inside or out of the penned in area.
One of the nasty black ones went to a friend who has a great big tom turkey......it was rather funny to watch him when he met up with tom.....LOL.
He followed us then like "aren't you going to take me back home?".