Our pour hen, Vera, is a little worse for the wear since we got our rooster. He really seems to favor her and now she has no feathers left on her back. His spurs have been cut, so he’s not hurting her, yet. But with no feather protection from his feet, I’m sure it won’t be long until she gets injured. I know that there are ‘saddles’ to put on chickens to keep their feathers from falling out, but that seems like a bit much for a hen to wear 24/7. What do you all do?
we have several hens that look like that. i always thought it was because we had too many roosters, but it doesn’t sound like it. i guess it’s the nature of the beast?
btw, i’ve been trying to hoop daily and learn to get beyond my waist…i can do all the moves until i have the hoop in place then i don’t seem to be fast enough to keep it up. today, my whole torso is stiff and sore! i never thought about how hard it could be on the body to start doing it. i hope i can keep it up though, it seems like a great way to keep my body toned up. i just have to keep the 2 1/2 year old away from the hoop. he just doesn’t learn.
any suggestions on getting the hang of chest and shoulder hooping?
a friend of mine has a rooster that is pulling the feathers out of the backs of all his chix….he ordered the “chicken aprons” from someone, 50 dollars for 18 of them…i googled them online….theyre too cute, but i cant imagine dressing up my chickens lol, but if the work i guess its worth it. good luck
I wish I had some good suggestions… It just takes time and learning the movement. Try to isolate moving your chest in a circle without the hoop first… like belly dancing, only with your chest. This is the move you use to keep the hoop up. There are TONS of videos on Youtube. Look up ‘chest hooping’ or ‘shoulder hooping’ and you’ll find some tutorials… SaFire has some good tutorials.
Yeah, hooping with little kids isn’t so easy 🙂 Neither is hooping with really friendly dogs! They just don’t seem to care that this big thing is swinging towards them…
I have a hen who is the favorite too. Her back became totally bare of feathers and she got some pretty bad gashes from the rooster’s claws – not the spurs. So, found a freebie pattern (online) for the chicken apron/saddle, made one up (had to adjust it a little to fit well) put it on her. She wears it 24/7 for over a year now with no problems. She accepts it fine, feathers have grown back and she’s doing great.