What are the main causes of chickens losing feathers?

Raising chickens is a common project in rural areas nowadays, but many friends are unclear about the reasons behind chickens losing feathers. In fact, there are many causes of feather loss in chickens; some are normal, while others are caused by our own actions. The disease-related cause of feather loss that is easiest to identify is folliculitis, while other cases are mostly caused by poor daily feeding and care. Let's take a look together below.

1. Caused by folliculitis

Due to hygiene issues, chickens become infected by pathogens during their growth, and some pores are invaded by bacteria, causing the nutrients at the pores to be insufficient and leading to inflammation, so the feathers naturally fall out. The most obvious sign is that the flesh where the feathers have fallen out appears to have many red spots. For treatment at this point, you can try feeding more anti-inflammatory medicine; if the effect is not very good, you will need to buy specialised targeted medication.

2. Deficiency or excess of trace elements

Trace elements are also extremely important for chickens. In terms of feather loss, it may be caused by feeding too much selenium and arsenic, which leads to abnormal growth of the tail feathers, which eventually exceed what the chicken can sustain and fall out. It may also be caused by a deficiency of zinc, which leads to poor development of the feather roots, making it impossible to normally maintain feather growth and ultimately causing them to fall out. For these aspects, you need to pay more attention to checking the trace element content when buying feed.

3. Improper feeding

Everyone knows how to feed chickens, but most people only know how to feed and do not know about food combinations. In fact, if the items fed are acidic foods for a long time, it is very easy to trigger some illnesses and cause feathers to fall out in large numbers. Secondly, the feed must ensure protein supply. After all, if chickens are to fatten up, protein is indispensable; when protein is insufficient, the first thing that appears is feather loss.

4. Feather pecking

This is a relatively easy situation to notice. Feather pecking is divided into two types: self-pecking and mutual pecking. The causes of this situation are mostly that the chickens are fed too little green leafy food, so the chickens use their own feathers as a substitute; it may also be that the chicken coop is too small, the chickens squeeze against each other, or there are too many parasites, and the chickens begin self-pecking in order to drive away the parasites. Improving the chicken coop and increasing the amount of vegetables fed will solve this situation.

5. Natural growth

Sometimes when chickens lose feathers, there is actually no need to worry too much, because this is still normal. As chickens grow, some relatively fragile feathers can no longer keep up with the chicken's own condition, so at this point the chickens begin to shed feathers and then grow new and better feathers. Feather loss from natural growth is mostly concentrated in the chest area of the chicken. After noticing the feather loss, do not panic; check whether it is on the chest area, whether there is anything unusual at the location of the feather loss, and observe for a few days to see whether new growth is happening before making a decision.

6. External factors

Finally, there are some external causes, such as the ventilation openings of the chicken coop being relatively large or the chicken coop being relatively small, so the chickens frequently rub against the walls when entering, exiting or resting, and over time this wears the feathers off. Or the chickens may have eaten something with too high a salt content when leaving the coop, and these can all cause chickens to lose feathers.

Feather loss in chickens is relatively normal. In most cases, as long as it is not some kind of disease, it will not have a great impact on the chickens, so everyone can just treat it with a calm mind. However, solutions still need to be actively implemented, so that your own economic value can be guaranteed.