[langdon]

my wife has noticed one of our chucks beaky(named her that cos her beak was impaired when she arrived to us)
her feathers on her bum has seemed to have gone.
we dont know if this is due to pecking as she has been the subject of it before.
beth is noticing that her and eddie(our cockerel) are mating all the time,
and we think maybe she is getting to much, if ye know what i mean!
could this be a possible reason why he is losing her bum feathers if eddie is not leaving her alone.  

[Elissian]

Not an answer but we have a Beaky with a mismatched beak, the only name for her really!
The feathers on your Beaky's bum have probably been pecked out i don't think mating effects the back end feathers more likely to loose neck/back feathers from over mating. are your rations balanced and do they have enough space, boredom or unbalanced diet might be the problem.

[sagehen]

Yes they do lose their backfeathers from mating. You can get a saddle for the poor hens, if she's losing too many feathers:

http://hensaver.com/hen-apron.html

[langdon]

when you say backfeathers do you mean the bum area?
also could this happen if a hen is broody?
this is what my mother in law thought, but i doubt it.

[jameslindsay]

The "Hen Apron" - whatever next? Mind you if it works that's all that matters.

[sagehen]

Not as bad as the cockerel sock that I was thinking about knitting! 

[langdon]

so that could be the reason then?
cos my wife said she allways sees beaky and eddie together.
as i said before ive not noticed any pecking going on and im out there every day with all my animals.

[sagehen]

You mean the feathers on her actual bum area is missing as well? The cockerels tend to jump on the backs of the hens and that is where the feathers are likely to have been 'rubbed off', but not the actual bum.

[SuzyJ]

One of our large white hen lost a lot of feathers last year, to the point where she looked almost oven ready! we took her away from the cockerel for 2 weeks (she was his favourite) and the feathers grew back, she's totally back to normal now and lays wonderful large eggs. If we put new hens in with our established group the do tend to get pecked until they are accepted so we let them range beside the chicken run for a few days before trying them in with the others.

Some of the other hens showed signs of losing feathers on their backs but not to a huge extent, that seemed to stop as the autumn went on and Mafia the cockerel was less randy!

[little blue]

Not as bad as the cockerel sock that I was thinking about knitting! 

 

[sagehen]

Oop I meant socks, not sock   

[little blue]

ooh, do you mean for his spurs? not his, ahem cock-eral?!!

[sagehen]

*wipes tea off screen*

Yes! Bigchicken was asking for socks for his goose-stepping bantam  Is it just my mind but that sounded rude to me as well hahahaha!

[Helencus]

I'm confused .. Whatever do you guys mean ?? 

[little blue]

my friends find great amusement in my story of how we got our cockerel.... he was my neighbour's "black silkie" cock, and slipped over the fence...
Why is that so funny??!!