I have been keeping my chickens inside their house for the past several days due to these nasty gnats. Today I couldn't help but let them out and when I did I discovered that my roos were bald! One is missing feathers on his neck and head and the other is missing his muff feathers. Ok, now they could be picking or maybe scratching where they were bit, but the hens don't have this going on so I'm assuming they were fighting. When (how long) will the feathers grow back? If one roo is a frizzle, will his take longer to grow back? He's (I just discovered) missing his tail feathers! Errrrrrr!
Bald Roos!
sorry! i won't ask for a picture, you explained that well. are the gnats better?
tf
No, gnats still swarming around. I let them out for a bit, but the bugs got bad and I had to put them back. This is a bummer. Any ideas on when the feathers may grow back?
How old are they? I was just reading last night about "neck molt" which occurs the first year--but maybe it is just pullets?
They are almost a year.
Hmmmm, everything I read says the molt starts at head/neck and tail---and sometimes stops there, especially the first year. Other people are complaining that it is happening to their rooster as well as pullets. This link sort of discusses it toward the bottom. Protein seems important to get them through it. They aren't tightly confined are they? It seems odd that they would all loose their neck feathers through picking.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1517
Ok, when chickens moult, do they lose ALL their feathers in one spot? What does it look like? Another query, they had vaseline and sevin dust around their heads. You don't think the feathers just fell out? They look horrible! I wish things wouls just return to normal, but until it gets hot enough to kill all these gnats, ugh! My Marans hasn't laid an egg in a week! When these gnats arrived she was setting. Since then she hasn't laid. Is it because she was setting? Or is it because she's been inside mostly? When do you think she'll start to lay again? This stinks!!!!
Bumping for answers.
you know i wsih i had some...
Oh well. I guess she'll lay when she's good and ready.
ho old is she, has she moulted?
Almost a year. As far as moulting goes, don't laugh, I have no idea?? Um, what feathers are lost and how many at a time?
i thi8nk she is just taking her yearly break from laying, all us gals deserve a break no an then. give her extra good feed. if she doens'tstart back up, i bleive you can force the moult so that it finishes faster, you close them up without food or light, but with plenty of water. 3 days i believe.... if you can't find the info online i will look on my shelf and see if i still have that book... of course i have it, but can i find it? LOL
Ok, well that's better news. I hope that's all it is. It happened after the whole gnat thing and I thought maybe she was having issues, lol! She was setting like I stated earlier, and I don't know when setting hens start laying again. She actually took over one of the silkies nests and eggs before the gnat thing. I'm sure everything will go back to normal after a week or so. Just kind of a crazy time over here right now.
According to Gail Damerow:
"Under natural circumstances, a chicken molts for 14 to 16 weeks during late summer or early fall...most purebred hens stop laying for about two months."
And also
"Controlled molting is a tricky affair since it involves inducing severe and nutritional and environmental stress in order to stimulate more rapid than normal completion of the molt in 3 to 12 weeks. Leghorns, especially caged layers respond best to controlled molting....Take care---starving you hens and depriving them of water can backfire, causing deaths instead of rejuvenated laying."
Sounds harsh. I think it is mostly used with battery chickens who are in constant lighting and so don't have enviornmental cues for a regular molt.
Patchouli, have you seen Granny's pictures of her Australorps in molt this spring? It was hilarious in a horrifying way....they were naked from the waist down and strutting around like nothing was wrong. I'm not sure where the link is.
Are you serious, LMAO! Ok, I'm looking for that thread!
The girls are finally getting to look better now. It seems we also have a feather picking problem with these guys. I don't know if it was just from our crazy weather this last winter, or boredom. I have noticed that they are feathering out pretty well, but still have a couple that are pretty naked. I know it isn't from the roosters because there are only three roos to 30 hens.
DH found one of the hens dead this morning. No reason but it could have jumped off the roost the wrong way and killed itself. This has happened before as our roosts are pretty high. We are changing that in the expansion. They will not be four feet off the floor there like in the old section. I guess they all like to sleep up high and occasionally one of them hits the wrong way when they jump off them.
We put the juvies in their temporary quarters outside last week, and they are doing fine now that they found out that they can go outside whenever they want. We will be adding the younger ones in a couple of weeks, and the babies will be going out in about 6 weeks. Then we will be able to clean up the garage and life will maybe get back to normal.
GG
GG sorry about your hen. I will have to learn from your sorrow not to put the nest and roost up too high.
MollyD
Well, Molly, I can't prove that was the cause of her death, but since we can't rule it out, and there wasn't any injury or illness, we have to assume that was what it was. We have had this happen before.
GG
GG your instincts are probably right. Experience with things makes us recognize them.
MollyD
Yep, and when you get to be an old lady, your instincts are pretty much all you have. LOL
GG
aw, Granny, you've got more thatn that, a LOT more!
sorry about that hen, and about the feather picking too...
the forced moulting i read about was in a homesteading book. when my hens were living elswhere and looking ratty, she thought it was pecking, so i came and confiscated the culprits, and she locked up the rest in the dark for fivew days with just water. they all looked good by the time they came home. still aren't all laying again though, sigh....
Well, since mine just got an expanded henhouse, we may have solved the pecking problem. If not, we will be changing some of the flock this fall. But even if they do stop pecking, we will have to change some of them anyway. I intend to add about 20 hens to the flock so we will see how many we have from the young ones, and will add those we need and cull some of the hens and of course, most of the roos.
I am going to change roosters (all except Rocky), so I can have viable males for breeding.
GG