Rehome/cull/wait? Feather eating

[Greenlintie]

Hi
I've had my hens for just over a year now: we have a large coop with 3 boxes, a very secure 'colditz' type run 12x21ft, with woodchips on the floor and lots of things to do and recently we added about double that with an electric net fence, sacrificing a lot of my veg beds with overgrown huge cabbage lol which had bolted, to give our flock of 7 mixed girls more space. We have two isa browns, two bovins nero, one white sussex, one speckledy and one bluebell.

The problem we have is epic feather eating: it started when the bluebell, speckledy and sussex were introduced (I'm an addict, I admit) from a local seller who (it turns out) has no experience of hens. None. When I spotted a few feathers missing around the vents, I assumed it was the molt (in September ) - anyway, it got worse and worse and worse. I came here, found lots an dlots of of info, and tried it *all*:
- vitamins
- amino acids
- changing the feeder and drinker
- changing the feed
- adding mealworms
- spraying them blue
- spraying them with anti pecking spray, two kinds
- dowsing them with all kinds of powders, potions and mite drops, just in case.
- fitting bumpa bits, which made almost NO DIFFERENCE whatsoever. My hens are smart.
- adding extra space to the run, so they were less confined.
- putting up CDs, swings, pecking blocks, branches, pallets, etc. to enrich their space.
you get the idea.

Now I love my girls. They lay an egg every single morning and I am happy with them (even though they are truly unattractive, with feathers missing on vents, around the gland at the base of their tail, even on some wings, their legs and at the back of their necks. It's just gotten worse and it's my fault for introducing hens without waiting to see if they were peckers or not.

I would really love to reduce the size of my flock: however, I've been told that I shouldn't mix them with other people's existing, non-eating flock as they will just spread the habit. So either I have to cull them or rehome the lot of them. I have come to the conclusion that there just isn't enough space for all of them, and it is much worse to be keeping them somewhere too small and causing them stress than ... you know, culling a few.

Would it be best to just cull all of them and start again, with a smaller breed and much smaller numbers? Perhaps 3 bantams or so? I will miss my eggs but to be honest even I can't keep up with them, and selling them is a real faff so we usually give away a couple of dozen each week...

Would appreciate some thoughts from more experienced chicken keepers and breeders, thank you.

 

[chrismahon]

It's a habit that develops Greenlintie. You have dealt with all the reasons for starting but one of them perhaps has now got the habit. Separation of that one or a Bumpa beak bit are possible treatments. We have tried separation for three months and she went straight back to it. The beak worked after 6 months (2 bits, wore one out). Culling the lot is a bit drastic. Perhaps there is more than one hen doing it but in my experience one sneaks round all of them and it will be the one who still has tail feathers.

 

[Greenlintie]

Thanks Chris - the bumpa bits didn't seem to make a huge impact but I have enough left to try one more time. What I need to do is have a day when all I do is sit and watch them... not easy at the moment! They all seem to have a go but I will try and work out who has most of the feathers left. I've ordered a wee hutch type isolation run & coop, so I can maybe take one out for a while. I heard somewhere that it can be atype of addictive behaviour and once they start it's almost impossible to stop completely. Worth a shot though!