Question about Molting

[GoodyChickenShz]

When chickens molt, do they lose ALL their feathers or only some of them?

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Depends on the chicken...my orps and brahmas look like a chicken has exploded in the henhouse when they go into their molts..last year the brahmas were the worse...I felt like hiding them they were so nekked... lol ..some breeds don't lose much....

 

[ella]

Feathers get worn over time and need to be replaced so they will loose them all.

Thing is some molt slowly over a few month period you'll hardly notice unless you fluff them up and see the new feathers growing in.

Others loose them all at once and have bald patches for a while. You sure notice that!

 

[ChicknThief]

Just ask Rooster Red to show you some pics of Big Red when he had that bad moult. The pic is so surreal that when I first saw it, I thought it was photoshopped!

 

[GoodyChickenShz]

Thanks for the responses. I read in another thread that chickens don't regrow feathers throughout the year....that they only regrow them right after a molt. Is that true?

 

[ChicknThief]

OK, I spent all last night, obbsessive compulsively pouring over 87 pages of threads to try to find that picture for you, but to no avail. :|

I believe it is true that feathers only grow back after a moult. If you were to pluck a feather right now, that feather would not be replaced until the chicken moults again.

 

[rooster-red]

It wasn't big red, it was my barred rock.

 

[speckledhen]

Here's a bad molt. Poor Lexie was like this for months because she wouldn't stop laying. When she finally did, she grew them back quickly, with the help of AviaCharge vitamin/mineral supplement some wonderful BYC person sent me.

Now, she's her beautiful self again, thank goodness!

 

[ChicknThief]

Rooster Red: I was referring to the pic of the completely naked rooster. Maybe it was somebody else? I could have sworn it was Big Red though... Well I guess Thief has finally lost the last of her marbles... Or was that really a photoshopped pic? LOL Anyone else remember this?

Cynthia: Poor Lexie! That just doen't look like it was oodles of fun.

 

[MRNpoultry]

What time of year do chickens start to molt?

I remember seeing a picture of a rooster with almost no feathers to.