In a flock of hens there’s always drama. Like the reality show Survivor, chickens see themselves as being castaways with limited resources. They form alliances. They guard what’s theirs and they plot for more. There’s friendship and competition, foraging, and naps in the sun. Balance is achieved, but easily rocked. Recently the balance here was shaken. I brought Beulah back from the nursing home. I uncovered feather picking amongst the tribes. And, like the host on the show, I shuffled the groups.

Misty is a Blue Andalusian, which is a flighty, nervous, high-energy breed. Andalusians have large, floppy combs which are like bulls eye targets for the others to peck at, but these birds are fast and agile, and so can step out of the way of aggressors. In fact, in a mixed flock, the Andalusian is, if not on the top of the pecking order, able to dart here and there and get what they need.

Misty is both a confirmed feather picker, and she was the top hen in the Ladies tribe. If it was up to Misty, Beulah would have stayed out in the cold and never have been allowed to step foot in the coop. Misty, what with her feather picking and bullying, had become a problem in with the Ladies, so I moved her in with the Gems. The Gems already knew her from free-ranging on the lawn together. There have, in the past, been chest-thumping challenges, but the two flocks tend to keep to themselves when out on the lawn, so the skirmishes never amounted to much.

The Gem’s run isn’t covered by hawk netting, and Misty can fly, so I clipped her wings. According to the books, just the large flight feathers on one side have to be cut off. This would both put her off-balance and prevent lift-off.

I put Misty on the roost so that she could get a lay of the land, and the Gems could see her.

Soon enough, Misty hopped down and the Gems told her to Go Away. In another flock, and a smaller and more poorly designed coop, this could have turned into a blood bath. Hens will pin down an interloper and peck at her head until death. But, I know the Gems, I know that there’s plenty of space and resources. I knew it’d be okay. I added some fresh bedding for them to scratch in and be distracted by, both inside and out. Misty was chased. She ran outside. She looked back inside. She was told to leave. She did.

The Gems ignored her, unless she came too close. Then they scared her off. She stared longingly at her old coop. Even Lily knew that this one didn’t belong in with the Gems.

Things looked peaceful enough so I went back into the house. I soon got an email from an observant HenCammer. Misty was on the lawn. She’s a hen that doesn’t particularly like human attention, but when she saw me on the back steps, Misty came running. Take me home! she said. I didn’t. I don’t know how she managed to fly with one clipped wing, but I clipped the other and put her back in with the Gems.

An hour later she was back on the lawn. I have no idea how she got up and over a six-foot fence. I clipped the wings even shorter.  Misty finally stayed put.

I watched the dynamics in the coop and was chagrined to see that, even in a new flock, and with lowered status, Misty still snaked her head out to pick a feather off of another hen. This was gentle and not at all aggressive. I’ve been reading that this type of feather picking is related to preening and bonding, but I still don’t like to see it!

The next day, the Gems had really put Misty in her place. She was either under the nesting boxes or in a corner of the yard. That’s good. She would no longer be a bully.

By today, you couldn’t even tell that she was a) a new hen in a flock and b) a reformed bully. This is what I like to see – hens going about their day evenly spaced out:

Once in awhile, a hen pecks at Misty to tell her to keep her distance. I like seeing that, too.

I know it’s all okay because look at Misty’s comb. Amazingly, after all of this drama, it’s not bloodied.

On top of that, I know that Misty has settled in because yesterday she laid an egg, like a good hen, right in the nesting box.

Most chickens are not long-lived, but a few defy the odds and make it into a grand old age.

In October of 2004, I got five chicks from a neighbor who had purchased a large order from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Two were Barred Rocks, two were New Hampshire Reds and one was a Black Star.

The Barred Rocks were named Eleanor and Edwina, and I soon rued the day that I got them. They were voracious eaters, and woe to any chicken that got between them and their food. They established themselves on the top of the pecking order, and stayed there with the use of brute force. On the plus side, they didn’t go broody and they laid eggs fairly consistently. Other hens died, but they lived on. Eleanor and Edwina stopped laying eggs. They got older and older, and yet remained the dominant hens. Edwina became one of the stars of my children’s book, Tillie Lays an Egg. She was a smart hen and food motivated. It was easy to train her to pose for the photographs. That made me like her a little more.

Eleanor died in 2012. Edwina kept on. She bullied Buffy and so was sent to live with the Gems, who were unimpressed by her swagger. Edwina learned to live unobtrusively. She didn’t bother anyone and they didn’t bother her. It turned out that I rather liked this Grand Dame. As other chickens aged, fell sick and died, she lived on. Her comb remained red and her appetite remained intact.

Last month I noticed that the normally pristine feathers around her vent were streaked with white manure. A week ago I noticed a distinct change in her energy level. Three days ago her comb went from red to grey. Last night she stood hunched, a pose Edwina had never done before. Although she was failing quickly, a chicken can hang on in that almost-dead state for days, if not a week or longer. She’d had a very good run. I didn’t want her to suffer. This morning I asked Steve to euthanize her.

Edwina at 6 1/2 years of age.

As I always do with my deceased birds, I did a necropsy. As with my other very long-lived birds, she didn’t have tumors or cancer. What she did have was an old intestinal tract that was no longer functioning. If I hadn’t euthanized her, she would have starved to death. Prolonging an old or sick chicken’s life is rarely a kindness. Edwina had earned a humane end. Despite our early history, she had become a solid presence in the chicken yard. I shall miss her.

A chicken is designed to peck. It’s beak is hard, pointed and curved just so to be able to peck and pull. A hen’s neck is built so that it can turn quickly, and jab in a sudden motion. A chicken’s eyesight can zero in on the smallest speck, and stay locked in even when she juts out and pecks. A chicken’s beak serves her well for the sort of food she eats, but it also is crucial to her social life. Status is determined by body language, and if posturing doesn’t convince a flockmate to back off, a hen will resort to a swift peck. I’ve written about pecking order, and how to stabilize it and keep it in check here. Sometimes, though, even in flocks with no pecking order drama, a related problem arises that causes no end of consternation on the owner’s part – feather picking.

The feather picking that I’m going to talk about here isn’t the aggressive, status-seeking pecking that happens with pecking order squabbles. Feather picking can occur in the most peaceful of flocks. I’m currently seeing it with my Ladies (the six young hens raised together as chicks, seen on the HenCam main cam.) For awhile now I’ve noticed that Owly’s neck feathers have been looking sparse.

I didn’t worry much about this. There are no bare or red areas, and everyone else is in good plumage. But, over the last few days, as I’ve reintegrated Beulah into the group, I’ve been watching flock dynamics closely and I haven’t liked what I’ve seen.

I observed that the dominant hen, Misty, is a confirmed feather picker and eater. I watched as she walked up to Owly, pecked a feather off of Owly’s neck, and ate it whole.

Owly as much as offered her the feather. She didn’t budge. She didn’t look concerned or bothered. I watched as Misty walked over to other hens, eyed their feathers, and pecked. She targeted specific feathers, purposefully plucking one at a time and eating each. None of the hens seemed to care a whit. This is how feather picking can go on and the henkeeper won’t notice until there are bare spots. The exposed skin isn’t pretty for us to look at, but it’s not a big deal to the hens themselves. However, if the feather picking escalates and blood is drawn, then you have a serious problem, because when chickens see red they will peck, sometimes causing severe wounds or even death.

Sometimes you’ll see feather picking occur at only one time of day or in one place. Betsy used to have the habit of going up to dust bathing hens and plucking out their soft vent feathers. This behavior stopped when the weather turned and the girls no longer dust bathed at length. Feather picking is also prevalent at roosting time, when one hen will pluck the feathers off of another’s back. This can get so localized and severe that a hen can have a hole pecked into her. Years ago this happened in my flock, and it was only chance that I discovered a large wound under the covering of hard outer feathers. Removing the hen for treatment changed the pecking order. When she returned she no longer roosted in that spot, and the issue disappeared.

If it was just a dominance issue, it’d be easy to solve – remove the offending hen for four days, and when she returns, she’s lower on the pecking order and therefore won’t feather pick. That’s what I’ve done to Misty. Not only is she a feather picker, but she is also an overly assertive hen who had become too pushy. She’s now in with the Gems, who I’m hoping won’t let her near them to get a feather or peck at a comb. (I’ve been watching, and she’s tried to feather pick. It’s too early to know how this will play out.) I’ve fortunate to have the Gems, a sensible and calm flock of hens who don’t put up with nonsense. They reformed Edwina, who was a bully, and would have killed Buffy if she could have, but in with the Gems she is a polite old lady. I have confidence that Misty, too, will settle in and behave herself.

The first thing to do when you see signs of feather picking is to assess the damage. Is it cosmetic, or are there wounds? Bare skin should be darkened with blu kote (in some countries called gentian violet.) Hens won’t turn cannibalistic if they don’t see red. If the skin is broken, or if there are serious wounds, then that hen must be removed until she heals. If there is only one hen doing the feather picking, you can remove her from the flock and hope that she won’t go back to the habit when she returns. One hopes that the hens will tell her to stop, but there’s not much to be done when the picked-on hen encourages the behavior, as Owly did with Misty. It’s hard to understand chickens, sometimes.

One theory about feather eating is that the hens are looking for roughage. There might be truth to that, so always have poultry grit (coarsely ground granite) available free choice. They might also be looking for calcium, so supply oyster shell in a dispenser. Although I have these things out in the pen, looking back, I realize that there were many winter days when they were frozen under snow or ice.

You also want to provide as many interesting and nutritious things as possible for the hens to be distracted by. Feather picking is often worse in winter when hens are confined and bored. Put out cantaloupes, squash, cabbage and kale. Don’t close up your hens in cold weather – as long as they have clear ground to walk on, they can go outside. Sunshine and exercise is essential. Reevaluate how much space your hens have. Provide outside roosts. Give them a compost pile to scratch in. All of that will lessen the severity of the picking.

But, nutritional deficiencies and boredom don’t explain all of feather picking. This bad habit often starts during the molt, when feathers are on the ground. A hen tries one and likes it. Then she sees feathers loosely fluttering on another hen, pecks and eats that. Soon, she’s plucking the feathers off of her neighbors. It is often is the dominant hen that feather picks. Perhaps she pecked at another hen to assert her claim over a treat and ended up with a feather in her mouth. She ate it and decided to get another. In some flocks only one hen will be the feather picker, but in others it might be several.

Meanwhile, I’ve uncovered another feather picker in with the Ladies: Nancy Drew. And, I’ve just added Beulah, who’s reason for return is that she was harassing and feather picking the other hens at the nursing home. Both hens are Black Stars and look alike. This just might solve the problem. Hens of a feather flock together and so already the two are hanging out. Yesterday I saw them companionably next to each other on an outside roost. Nancy pecked at Beulah who snaked her head and said no. Then Beulah tried to peck at Nancy, who also made it clear that she wasn’t a source of edible feathers. Perhaps they’ll cancel each other out? Meanwhile, despite a bit of feather loss, the flock is healthy and behaving like happy chickens. I’m going to do what I can (grit, oyster shell, healthy distractions) and leave it at that.

UPDATE: I’ve been looking further into feather picking. There’s quite a lot of research (much done in the European Union because of their new poultry regulations)  that sheds light onto what causes feather picking. Genetics, diet, and housing all come into play. I’ll be reading the scientific papers and distilling it with a bit of my own commonsense to come up with suggestions for the backyard flock keeper. Stay tuned!