Do the tails on hens fall off after a certain time? why?

Question

I have a chicken and a baby chick. I had a rooster, but it ran away a while back. How can I tell what s*x my baby chick is? Also, it looks like someone cut off the tail of the chicken. My neighbor says that they fall off, but I'm not sure. Can someone help?

Answer 1

Most of the time you can't tell which s*x the chick is until it gets to be about 3 months old or so.  Some breeds are identifiable at hatching from the feather patterns but most aren't evident right away.  Chickens do molt, that is feathers fall out and they get new ones, but if it looks like someone cut the feathers maybe someone did or she could have gotten attacked by an animal and she ripped loose.  Molting usually occurs in the fall and gets the chicken ready for winter with a new set of warm feathers.  Also, roosters don't wander away, you have a predator and the rooster probably tried to protect the hen and was eaten (sorry).

Answer 2

Roosters don't run away, so I hate to be the one to tell you this, but he may have been picked off by a predator.  Chickens know where their food, shelter and other chickens are - and they don't run away.

If your chicken is losing tail feathers, she's probably molting.  Twice a year, your chickens will lose their old feathers and regrow new ones.  Some don't molt very obviously, some end up looking like, well, a plucked chicken.  It will grow back, they don't just "fall off" for no apparent reason.  If you still had a rooster around, I'd probably blame him for the loss of feathers as well - sometimes an overly-amorous rooster will start snatching hens bald while trying to catch them to mate.

Have you also checked your birds for lice/mites and treated for them?  It's been a really bad summer for parasites (both internal and external).  If she's lost feathers around her vent, appears to be shaking her head and grooming herself excessively, she probably needs a good dusting.  Parasite infestation can also cause feather loss.

As far as your chick goes, without being sexed at a hatchery, you won't know until their adult characteristics start to develop.  Alot of this depends on the breed, and I'm not sure what breed you have.  Sometimes it's the size or color of the comb, presence of wattles, evidence of hackle feathers or differences in coloring.  You might just have to wait and see.