Feathers not growing.

In October in the middle of their moult my flock of hens had a visitor. A very active, enthusiastic but fortunately unskilled young springer spaniel. I think that this dog had been in my hens field for quite some time. When I discovered it there was not a hen to be seen apart from the one in it's mouth. However my fine Welsummer cockerel had been doing his job to protect his ladies as best he could. Once I had caught the delighted dog and returned it to it's owner ( I could barley look him in the eye as I would have said things we both would have regretted) I returned to the flock to check for casualties. All the hens were either up on fences, in trees or cowering in the hen houses. To my great relief there were no deaths or serious injury. The dog had just had a huge Beno and worried and chased them to exhaustion. However as I said my fine boy had done his best to keep the dog off his girls. Now I don't think cockerels go into battle with a plan and he was totally exhausted. To the point he could barely walk. I thought maybe he had a smashed pelvis. He spent a week in a broody coup and run and recovered, slowly as I think he had probably just been badly bruised by the dog. My fine boy is now completely recovered and in fine spirits. At the time he was maybe a quarter of the way through his Autumn moult and his tail feathers had all fallen out. He had just a few new tail feathers starting to poke through. The rest of him has feathered up wonderfully now and looks fantastic but these silly little tail feathers have remained at only about 1 inch long. Do you think it was simply shock and he will have to make do without a tail this year? What do you think?

Orchardlady.

You could give him a bit of "poultry spice" (the tiny amount per 10 birds is given on the tin). This is made of natural, curry spices, which help the birds through moults and gets them into pristine condition for shows.  I think he will feather up but these things can take a while