If are new to raising Chickens, it can be an enormous shock to discover a mass of feathers littered around your chicken coop. The first thought that would come to mind would be a fox; but as you begin to look around your flock, you will soon discover a dejected and scruffy looking hen. So let’s investigate as to why she has suddenly lost her feathers:


Possible Causes:
* Moulting is a natural process that happens annually. Your chicken replaces its entire feathers within a few weeks. You will soon see new feathers slowly starting to appear.
* Stress (heat, lack of water, illness)
* Being pecked by other chickens
* Cockerels can damage a hens feathers during mating
* Lice or mites


What to look out for:
* Chickens pecking one another
* Bald patches around the head, vent or back
* Feather eating, pulling and sucking
* Cockerel excessively mating with one particular hen


Treatment For:


Moulting
It’s highly recommended to administer Chicken Vet Amino. This can help considerably to provide your bird with additional protein it will need whilst it replaces its feathers (your chickens feathers are made up of 80% protein). Administer the Chicken Vet Amino within your hens drinking water for approximately 5 days, with a new and fresh solution made up every day.


Vent pecking
Chickens can often take part in an exercise called vent pecking. This activity can lead to the offender causing significant blood loss and can even be fatal to its victim. This behaviour begins out of curiosity and is considered as a non aggressive. Unfortunately, chickens enjoy pecking red objects. When hens begin to lay, their vents are commonly swollen and red in appearance for several hours.  This can cause your other chickens to start pecking. To prevent vent pecking start by darkening their chicken coop so the redness of the vent doesn’t appear as bright. It’s recommend to avoid letting your chickens out until after 10am. Your flock should have laid their eggs by this time so their vents should have returned to their normal colouring.


Aggressive pecking
Chickens are known to develop feather pulling or sucking out of boredom. The reasons for this odd behaviour are:

* Not enough space
* Closed inside for long periods
* Unsuitable environment
* Bullying from chicken ranked higher the pecking order


A patch of feathers in a specific area will commonly be targeted by other birds. If the aggressive chicken damages the skin or draws blood then it will unfortunately attract to other birds.


Aggressive pecking from chickens is instigated by overly dominant chickens asserting their authority within the pecking order. It’s often directed towards the victim’s head and can consist of a single hard peck, the victim is expected to retreat and then the natural order is resumed within the pecking order. Usually this is a one off single peck and isn’t a problem. Nevertheless, this can easily and quickly get out of hand before eventually causing death or even cannibalism (extreme circumstances).


Prevention
It’s always said that prevention is certainly better than a cure. An idea to reduce feather loss in many cases is to create distractions. These can be in the form of hanging up fresh greens, or even cereal blocks. Anti Peck Spray can also be sprayed on and around the affected areas of pecked chickens for up to 7 days this is because it comes with an extremely unpleasant taste, that discouraging your chickens from pecking each other. If a cockerel is a problem then it is recommended to separate the love birds and give the suffering hen some time alone to allow her to focus on her feather regrowth and aid her recovery.