9 month old PBB molting already?

[HensInTheForest]

Both my 9 mo old PBB girls stopped laying a few days ago and there are a few feathers scattered in the run.

One sits in the nesting box a lot even on no eggs.

I didnt think they would stop laying and molt this soon?

I see others are dealing with this right now.

Its in the 20s now but we had a pretty cold snap 2 weeks ago was below zero for a few days. Coop held at about 18 degrees at night And about 25 in the nest boxes.

No mites I have checked, brand new coop plus the cold.

Anything specific to do other than up protein abit for them?

Also seeing a few small fluff SF feathers now off the tops of their backs on the poop trays in the am. . .

No supplemental light added yet as I’m not sure of correlation or not.

 

[igorsMistress]

Both my 9 mo old PBB girls stopped laying a few days ago and there are a few feathers scattered in the run.

One sits in the nesting box a lot even on no eggs.

I didnt think they would stop laying and molt this soon?

I see others are dealing with this right now.

Its in the 20s now but we had a pretty cold snap 2 weeks ago was below zero for a few days. Coop held at about 18 degrees at night And about 25 in the nest boxes.

No mites I have checked, brand new coop plus the cold.

Anything specific to do other than up protein abit for them?

Also seeing a few small fluff SF feathers now off the tops of their backs on the poop trays in the am. . .

No supplemental light added yet as I’m not sure of correlation or not.

One to two molts per year is normal. Molting is more gradual in younger birds and can take some time. Keep in mind that it’s an individual thing, they won’t necessarily all molt at the same time and some will look worse than others.

 

[FunClucks]

One of my PBB started molting two months ago. So that would make her 7 months when she started. The rest of my PBBs are a month younger and were bought from a different batch of chicks - they are coming up on 8.5 months with no signs of molting yet and are giving me 3-4 eggs a day (5 hens). I have an open air run with clear tarp over the top and plastic on the sides of the run to cut down on the cold breeze, so the chickens get as much light as possible. I have a mixed flock - ISA Brown, golden comet, BO, SGE, olive egger, and none of my other chickens are molting.

When it's cloudy for a few days, I see a decrease in egg production. When it's sunny, production comes back up quickly. So I think light really has a lot to do with whether they lay or not.

 

[LaFleche]

What does PBB stand for?

 

[FunClucks]

What does PBB stand for?

Sorry, Prairie Bluebell Egger. Sold by Hoover's Hatchery. Basically a fancy easter egger that lays blue eggs, has no muffs/beards, has a pea comb and distinctive triangular body shape when viewed from above. They are smallish (4 lbs or so) with high feed to egg conversion and lay medium to large pale blue eggs. [One of mine has a slight greenish tint to her egg.] They are flighty, active, and good at foraging, but also tolerate confinement okay.

They come in black, black with white leakage, blue, blue with red leakage, classic partridge wildtype color (gold base) and I have one that looks like a brown leghorn/CCL minus the crest.

 

[LaFleche]

Thank you @FunClucks

 

[FunClucks]

Thank you @FunClucks

No problem. I'm still pretty new to chickens, but from what I can tell, PBBs haven't been around for more than a few years, so it's not like PBB is really on the list of acronyms everyone would easily recognize, unlike most heritage breeds. My current theory is that Hoovers has multiple hen/rooster combos to get such a wide variety of chicken colors and mixes the eggs together prior to incubation. But I could be totally wrong...

 

[LaFleche]

Apparently, each hatchery creates their own mixed breeds/hybrids every few years inventing fancy names along the way.

 

[RoseandRan]

One of my PBB started molting two months ago. So that would make her 7 months when she started. The rest of my PBBs are a month younger and were bought from a different batch of chicks - they are coming up on 8.5 months with no signs of molting yet and are giving me 3-4 eggs a day (5 hens). I have an open air run with clear tarp over the top and plastic on the sides of the run to cut down on the cold breeze, so the chickens get as much light as possible. I have a mixed flock - ISA Brown, golden comet, BO, SGE, olive egger, and none of my other chickens are molting.

When it's cloudy for a few days, I see a decrease in egg production. When it's sunny, production comes back up quickly. So I think light really has a lot to do with whether they lay or not.

 

[RoseandRan]

My dad says, when the sun hits the Retina of the eye it causes them to lay the egg. That’s why there are less on cloudy days