I am so sad to see the girls getting gradually more and more plucked. Sadly last years pattern is repeating itself.
Amber up close and chatting to me
Amber’s neck is becoming more bare. Amber is easy to get a close up of because when I crouch down she runs over to me chatting away. It’s just a case of clicking before she is too close. She is always chatting and photos of her are often open beaked like this. I look at this photo and can almost hear her.
Honey is now also getting a bare neck
Dotty is getting her head plucked too
The light patch on the back of her head is where she is losing feathers.
This really saddens me as I felt I could just about bare her neck being plucked if she didn’t get her head plucked. Steve, my eldest son, did warn me that the most likely outcome was that the same pattern would just repeat itself.
The awful thing is, that after just a few months of being fully feathered, they will probably have another year of being partly bare.
As before Pepper is intact except for a bare patch on her bottom
Bluebell has a bare neck
Pepper has a small bare patch on her bottom which I know from experience will get bigger
Bluebell has some of her head crest feathers broken
It is also sad that Bluebell, as a crested bird, has no crest most of the time.
I have been through all this before and know that there is nothing more I can do. The girls are happy and healthy and laying well and I know it doesn’t bother them, it only bothers me.
On a lighter note little Honey laid three days in a row for the first time ever and Amber laid another hard shelled egg with only one missed day in between so it seems the little girls have really got the hang of egg laying now.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
I love that first photo of Honey .She is so cute .
It is all very strange .As Steve says it is a habit now . I wonder if the ring leader (if you knew who it was ) was not there you find it stopping .
I think Pepper is the ring leader but it’s too late now because all three big girls do it equally. Pepper pecks the little girls and both big girls necks and heads and Dotty’s bum. Dotty and Bluebell peck each others necks and Peppers bum. Last year as it progressed Pepper and Bluebell also pecked Dotty’s bum. Bluebell’s bum seems fluffier and survived last year.