moulting affecting egglaying?

[CrimsonRose]

ok this past spring I got 5 gals off of a friend of ours... the girls I'm not sure on age but I'm thinking about 3 years old... When we first got them and all summer we were getting 2-4 eggs per day from them...

Then about the beginning of august the girls started molting... and stopped laying eggs... ok I'm thinking they will molt about a month or so then start laying again... mean while our new babies started laying and are each laying an egg per day still even though it's getting cold! But the older gals still look kinda scraggly and haven't laid anything!

So question is... how long to birds typically molt and when will they start laying again? I know they are older they are eastereggers... But I figured they would still lay something every now and then... right now it's been almost 3 months... They all look healthy other than the scraggly feathers no mites or anything...

 

[chickaddict]

hens do not lay while moulting - 3 months sounds like a long time to me. Mine generally take from 4-6 weeks but I don't know if it is different for each breed.

 

[CrimsonRose]

That's what I thought as well seems to be taking them a long time thought maybe it's because they are older... They have most of their new feathers in now so maybe soon I'll get some eggs from them...

 

[tuesdays chicks]

every breed is different some molt quick some take a long time and some don't even stop laying when they molt and age may play a part as well, and the time of year, its possible they may not start laying again until spring and the days start getting longer again.

 

[Judy]

I believe I've read that for a major molt, whih=ch is all of them except the 6 month one, it takes about 3 months before they lay again. My poor leghorn is just now getting some new feathers, looks about half naked, and hasn't laid in about 2 months. She used to lay close to daily.

 

[rnoyster]

When mine first started to moult, a friend said to feed them a couple of cans of wet cat food a week and it would help them finish moulting faster. They finally started laying yesterday after about 7 weeks. I don't know if it helped or not, but they seem to enjoy the extra little tidbits and I know that there is plenty of extra vitamins in the canned food for them.

 

[Resolution]

Quote:
This straight on.

When a bird in growing in new feathers it exhausts their bodies. This is when they need optimal nutrition. Cat food can certainly work in a picnh but you'll cut down on that time of the moult by supplementing with a balanced supplement formulated exclusively for birds :

http://shop.mazuri.com/mazuriexoticgamebirdstater.aspx

http://foragecakes.com/foragecake.htm ( for moulting birds use the Optimal formula).