[Daffy_Duck]

As the Winter has progressed my 7 girls have become increasingly bald and dirty. Is this normal? I originally thought these may be two separate issues, but now I'm not sure  
We bought 7 different breeds/hybrids (light Sussex, bluebell, Goldline, French Maran, Leghorn, Magpie, Silver link) so we could tell them apart and perhaps this was a mistake? We started with four in August last year and added a further three to our flock in October last year.
I have tried numerous things to stop the feather pecking and nothing seems to work. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Three of the girls have completely bald bottoms and the other four have lost quite a lot of feathers from thier bottoms, but are not yet bald. The feathers on their backs, necks and wings are not being pecked and there are no signs of injury - just nudity! Here's what I've tried so far to stop the pecking; anti-pecking spray, tea tree spray, hanging fruit/veg every day to alleviate boredom, dustbath, identifying culprits and removing from the run for four nights, adding catfood to their feed.

Recently I have cut back the hours I let them free range in the garden because I know foxes visit us regularly, but the pecking was going on long before this.

They are all laying and have no other obvious health problems.

With regard to their dirtiness - should I wash them or will they clean-up as the weather improves?
In case I am doing something wrong... They are in a large run (15' x 12'); the floor of the run is hardwood woodchip on top of soil and I regularly turn the woodchip. They have an Eglu cube for a house which I clean out thoroughly every fortnight. In addition to the fortnightly clean I change the newspaper that I line the poop trays with every third day. As well as their house, I built an extra sheltered area with perches for protection from the elements during the day and a sand bath for dust bathing.  They've been wormed with Flubenvet twice in the last 6 months and I apply lice powder about every 6 weeks. I also clean their feet on a regular basis and during the freezing cold period I put vaseline on their combs and bald bottoms - I know that seems strange, but I thought their bottoms could do with some protection from the freezing weather!  

Sorry for the long post, but I really care about my chickens and would hate my inexperience to be causing them harm.


 

[joyfull]

If you are sure that feather pecking is going on and have tried anti peck sprays or stockholm tar there is another product called ukadex which is very smelly  . If it still carries on then you could try beak bits which are available from the domestic fowl trust. You can wash chickens but make sure that they are properly dry before you put them back outside (use a hairdryer on a warm setting - not hot!!).

[chuckmum]

Have you checked for mites/lice?