Carol, May 15 2005

[Josh]

Our hens and roosters are almost bare and red in spots. Some have been this way for months. We feed the right amount of protein, have sprayed for lice and mites. We put sevin on the hens. They are not laying as well as they did. We have about 60 hens total. We were getting 42 eggs a day and the last two days only 9 eggs. Some of the hens are older than a year, and some younger.
Any suggestions? I contact the University of Tn. and he suggested the lighting was all wrong that we had messed up their biological clock. So we turned off the light at night and they are getting 15 hours of daylight from natural and artificial.
Is there a disease that causes them to lose their feathers this way?
We have 13 new Rhode Island reds but we are keeping them separate. I am really concerned about all them. If you could help me I would appreciate it.
I can send you a picture if you need it.
Carol

[JamesC]

Carol:
What lighting schedule did you have them on before you changed it to 15 hours? I don't pretend to be an expert but birds can be over stimulated and stressed if they don't get enough sleep. That could very well throw them into a molt which is likely what you are seeing now. As you probably know, birds don't lay when they are molting. Older birds would be more affected than younger but the younger birds would also be affected sooner or later.
Sudden changes in their lighting will also throw them off. If you changed their total hours one day "So we turned off the light at night and they are getting 15 hours of daylight from natural and artificial.",that could have compounded the problem. It would have been better to gradually shorten the day length. It's the same when the natural day shortens and you want to extend it artificially. You would gradually do it by 15 or 20 minute increases every day or every other day until you got to 14 hours total.
What's done is done so now all you can do is wait to see if they start to refeather. A feather takes 9 weeks to be dropped and to completely regrow so a molt will take about 2 months from start to finish.
Good Luck,
James