I picked up Gaia the ever-broody, yesterday morning, to remove her from the eggs. I turned her over slightly to look underneath her (why not?) and gasped in shock to find a big bare patch in her underside. It looked like all her feathers had been plucked.
I immediately thought that she had been attacked by jealous females, or that my ignorance and lack of care had caused this. [I already have Babu’s death on my novice conscience]. Luckily, I only divulged this “wound” to my husband who also took a doctor like approach to this exposed skin calling for immediate isolation and care.
I turned to the Internet as always, to seek a chicken psychology for my obviously overly bitchy hens. Imagine my embarrassment to read that this is a normal part of a chicken. The exposed skin is the bit that keeps the eggs warm!. I’ve failed basic chicken anatomy 101 already. It would be a bit of an obvious design fault for a chicken to have insulating feathers right in the place they are trying to transfer heat from their bodies to an egg shell. People say that chickens are dumb. Look not at the chicken to which the finger points, but at the doofus who’s arm is at the origin of said pointing finger.