{"id":14548,"date":"2016-03-17T19:17:09","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T19:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=14548"},"modified":"2016-03-17T19:17:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T19:17:09","slug":"the-dreaded-feather-pulling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=14548","title":{"rendered":"The dreaded feather pulling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Topaz has been pulling feathers from the girl’s necks. She has so far targeted Butterscotch on the head and breast, Honey and Emerald on the neck and now Toffee’s neck has just started to miss some feathers.<\/p>\n

Honey has been pulling feathers from all the girls fluffy behinds. I have seen her pull a handful of feathers from Butterscotch and today she was trying to pull feathers from Peaches and Barley and then Speckles behind. I shout NO NO NO every time I see this and move between her and the target.<\/p>\n

I am so upset to see this again and just can’t understand why this has started now. These two girls were the only ones that were part of the flock when this happened before but surely they can’t remember this behaviour from so far back and why now!<\/p>\n

I think it’s to do with the start of egg laying and raging hormones because this sort of behaviour always starts at this time of year.<\/p>\n

\"Emerald<\/a>

Emerald is getting a bare neck<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Emerald's<\/a>

Emerald’s bare patch<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Honey<\/a>

Honey is getting a bare neck<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Toffee<\/a>

Toffee is just starting to get a bare patch<\/p><\/div>\n

Toffee has a pale patch just below her beak which is where she is\u00a0just\u00a0starting to lose some feathers.<\/p>\n

When I got Butterscotch out for her break today, I put her down on the patio and Topaz rushed over to her and pulled some of the fluff from her head. This is all that she has left on her head.<\/p>\n

\"Butterscotch's<\/a>

Butterscotch’s remaining head feathers<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Butterscotch's<\/a>

Butterscotch’s missing neck\/breast feathers<\/p><\/div>\n

I have also seen Topaz target this area on her breast and it is remaining patchy.<\/p>\n

I hope against hope that this is a phase that will pass. I can’t re-home any more girls, especially little girls. I also can’t bare the thought of having a ragged flock like before.<\/p>\n

I guess only time will tell and we will have to wait to see how this progresses and just keep everything crossed that it passes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Topaz has been pulling feathers from the girl’s necks. She has so far targeted Butterscotch on the head and breast, Honey and Emerald on the neck and now Toffee’s neck has just started to miss some feathers. Honey has been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14548"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14581,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14548\/revisions\/14581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}