Hen Loosing feathers around chest

salina · Member Joined: Aug 08, 2005 Posts: 14

Hi

I have a hen who is sitting on 7 eggs at the moment. This is her second batch and she is paying a lot more attention to these eggs than the ones before.

I have only just noticed that she is loosing a lot of feathers around her chest.

At first i thought this was due to moulting as the male was the same but his feathers came back just recently.

I let my birds out of the cage every day however because sometimes the female is in the box at that time she does not actually come out of the cage. Should i encourage her to come and out and stretch a bit.

I am worried that the reason she is loosing feathers is cause she is bored in the box all the time?

Any one else experieced a hen loosing feathers because of sitting on eggs all the time.

Salina Think

Kaka-riki · Site Admin Joined: May 30, 2005 Posts: 363

Salina,
Dont worry. The hen is sitting very tight on her eggs and because of this she is wearing the feathers off her chest area. It is quite normal for sitting hens to lose feathers if they are sitting tight on a clutch of eggs.

salina · Member Joined: Aug 08, 2005 Posts: 14

Thats good. I had a suspision it may be somthing to do with the eggs.

Thank you

Salina