Do 8 month old chickens molt?

ChickenGirl23

In the Brooder
5 Years
Jun 1, 2014
26
0
24
Kansas City
I didn't think a chicken molted their first year, but I have an 8 month old polish missing lots of feathers. I see new ones growing in. She is pretty scraggly looking and missing all her tail feathers. She is perky and active, but not laying eggs. This has been going on a couple of weeks. Not sure if I should worry about other issues or if it just a molt. This is my first flock of chickens.
 
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She is young for an adult molt, but it does sound like that is what is going on, I would guess that she's at such an age that her body decided to molt instead of waiting a whole year. Extra protein can help it along.
 
This fall, my entire flock (20+) of first year birds (hatched in Jan, purchased from a hatchery) molted. Every. Single. One. I've never had that happen before, they were about 8-9 months old when they started their molt.
 
This fall, my entire flock (20+) of first year birds (hatched in Jan, purchased from a hatchery) molted. Every. Single. One. I've never had that happen before, they were about 8-9 months old when they started their molt.
Same here. My flock started in September, when they were about 8-9 months old. They are still in various stages of molting. At first, I thought it was just going to be a mini-molt, but it has turned out that most of my flock are just really slow, gradual molters. I've only got two that shed just about every single feather on their bodies overnight.
 
Same here. My flock started in September, when they were about 8-9 months old. They are still in various stages of molting. At first, I thought it was just going to be a mini-molt, but it has turned out that most of my flock are just really slow, gradual molters. I've only got two that shed just about every single feather on their bodies overnight.

Same here, they took FOREVER to finish. I got tired of waiting on and feeding them, so they all went to new homes. I need to concentrate more on my other projects anyway.

They had all just found their stride and then BAM, lets all molt. Boo.
 

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