I need all the info I can get about backyard chickening. They are family so I want to treat them well. This is an excellent source of information.
Any thoughts of what to do with those lovely feathers?
Regarding red mites. We treated the coop and the chickens with spray. I also washed the anemic and emaciated one in water with a few drops of Dawn, then water and vinegar, before a final rinse. The poultry dr prescribed antibiotics and Metacam. Hoping it's an infection and not ovarian cancer like our last one. Our other girl, Alice is very healthy and I'm hesitant to wash her since she's a little high-strung. Is washing worth it after spraying for red mites? We are still seeing a few of them. Alice is a big dust bather.
Yep all birds molt and they can sure look pretty sad when they do. I wonder if those mite protection medallions they sell would work on an outdoor coop? I've seen them for pet birds before, you hang them on the cage and it's supposed to repel them. I don't think I'd want to wait for my birds to get mites, I'd rather be more proactive. I completely forgot about the mites, since all my other birds were indoor pets, parrots, parakeets, etc.
Great article! Question - what about pullets at age 16-ish. Mine seem to be molting even if they molted about a month ago or less. They don't LOOK like they are molting but I find lots of feathers in a clump of one pullet or another. They don't have mites - do they have a couple of molts?
Good detail. I appreciated the pictures and the information about feeding and behavior during molting. Thank you! The links are very useful too, because I was looking about my pullets molting at 12/13 weeks of age and you gave an article link that was spot on! I wasn't sure they were molting or if it was another problem.
