Good news and bad news

The good news is that Red is back in lay again. She laid today on the third day after her last egg. We will be having her eggs for our weekend breakfast.

The bad news is that Autumn is back to pecking her legs and feet. She is even worse than before. It is frustrating because she stops for a while then starts up again.

Autumn started doing this again a week ago. I have repeatedly sprayed her for scaly mite and feel sure she doesn’t have them. There is no sign of them, no grey residue. I think she has just formed a habit of pecking at her scales. For the past week she hasn’t left her feet alone. She has pecked them to the stage where she was limping and she spent all her time on the perch over the hatch in the run and was looking miserable.

This morning Autumn escalated the pecking. She was stood on one of the nest boxes pecking at her feet. Next time I checked on her she was sitting on the perch in the chicken shed. Her feet were bleeding. There was a lump of scales on the nest box that she had picked off.

Autumn has also started to moult which seems very late in the year and I had begun to think she would miss moulting. I am constantly spraying her wounds with the healing and skin repair spray but nothing is going to help if she keeps doing this. We have never had a girl self destruct before and we really think this may end with us losing her.

Her feet are such a mess and she has also pecked off a strip at the back of her leg.

I ended up leaving Autumn in the chicken shed because I felt she was less likely to peck in there, although I can’t be entirely sure and at least her feet would stay clean. Her feet are much more vulnerable to dirt getting in the wounds and I worry about infection.

I don’t think Autumn is eating properly either. She is eating the treats but I haven’t seen her go to the pellets and her poops are sloppy and white.

Later I sprayed Autumn’s feet again and she came out of the chicken shed. I gave her sunflower hearts, chopped tomato and mash. I will do all I can to keep her eating. I have also put vitamins in the water.

As always I have done loads of research on the internet on this. Whatever chicken problem we have other people have too. I found a few people that have the same issue. They said after treating for scaly mite one of their girls started doing this and the photos showed the same as Autumn.

They also said the bird no longer had mites and would stop pecking for a while and then start up again. They had, like me, tried all the different sprays to no avail.

This is disheartening because I am not sure there is a solution. I know from the past that once a girl gets a habit it can be impossible to break.

I really don’t know how this is going to end. If she would just stop pecking she would heal and be okay. If she won’t stop pecking she may go down hill to the extent where she will have to be put to sleep. Usually when there is a problem it can be treated but this isn’t something that can be treated. I am so saddened by this situation.