Snow has been having a full moult. This surprises me for a first year girl as they don’t usually moult before their first winter. She started losing all the small feathers and then some wing feathers and then her tail feathers.
The day before yesterday Snow had only two tail feathers left. Yesterday snow had one remaining tail feather and today I found that last feather in the chicken shed this morning.
Autumn is heading for her second winter and yet hasn’t moulted which is also unusual. Her feathers still look pristine. I wonder if she isn’t moulting because she hasn’t laid all summer.
Autumn is still pecking at her legs from time to time. You can see the latest red spot on this photo just above her left foot. When I last posted about this problem she was doing it all the time and then I thought after regular spraying she had finally stopped. Since then she is okay for a while and then every now and again she does it again.
It is really frustrating because she then limps on the leg she has pecked as it is obviously painful. I then spray her with the healing and skin repair spray.
Each time Autumn has a spell of pecking her scales off I have sprayed her with scaly leg spray in case it is because of that. I really don’t think it is scaly mite though as I have now sprayed her for three lots of three weeks and only finished a few days ago so I can’t see that she has scaly mites plus none of the other are effected.
I am also spraying her with the protective spray in between which says it cleanses away bacteria, fungi and mites. Never has a girl had her legs sprayed so much! I am spraying her regularly with all three sprays and yet she still pecks her scales off. I think it may be a habit.There is nothing more I can do for her than I am already doing.
Red has laid three eggs each time on the third day. She hasn’t laid for four days now so I’m not sure if that was it. We don’t seem to be very lucky with wyandottes laying.
I thought I would end with a photo of the flock together. They do enjoy their bedtime corn.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Snow does look typically bedraggled, as they always do when they lose their tail feathers. I always love to see the new ones advance. It is strange that Autumn hasn’t moulted – my older girls, who haven’t laid for several years, still moult in line with all the others. She is a real conundrum in more than one way! I suspect you’re right about the self-pecking being a habit. And Red! 3 days between eggs is quite a gap for new layers (although the only one I have who’s started lays only every other day): I do hope she is not going to be a repeat of Topaz – although the other one (was it Sparkle?) was a really good layer for a bantam, if I recall correctly. Hope you get another Red egg tomorrow.
All the other girls when laying lay every other day and sometimes two days in a row so it was a slow start for Red and then after three eggs seems to have stopped. Yes Topaz was hopeless and Sparkle was a good layer but didn’t live very long. I seem to be a bit doomed with wyandottes.
Sorry to hear Autumn is still biting her leg, i thought that was all over. Some nice pictures.
I too thought we were past it but from time to time she has kept doing it. It is a real nuisance.