9 months old hens molting ??

[gritsar]

Quote:
But...they need the yearly molt. Egglaying takes alot out of a hen.

 

[KazAnder Farms]

I'm not saying the egg laying continues, they just don't loose their feathers, we had some family coming over and vain as I am, I didn't want to turn the nieces and nephews off to chickens because they were scary or something not to cuddle with.

gritsar
Yesterday 4:44 pm
KazAnder Farms wrote:

Funny enough I have found a way to discourage the yearly molt by adding extra lights and keeping them on.

But...they need the yearly molt. Egglaying takes alot out of a hen.

but you're probably right about that.​

 

[Agnella]

I'm so glad I found this post! I have 8 BO's and only one seems to be going through this right now. She has the loss of feathers only on her neck and tail....poor girl looks horrible next to the others!

Do chickens lose weight during their molt? She's looking skinny and has the lightest weight of all of them.

Thanks!!

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
They can. They are just basically miserable while molting. I probably would be too if I felt like a pincushion.

 

[cherrybombuk]

I see this is an old thread, yet it is just what I needed. Peach Fuzz, a little Bantam Easter Egger, is losing feathers. The first symptom was, though, she hasn't laid eggs in five days (and she is a regular little feather ball). Will up her protein and so forth to help her deal with this time. Thanks to the original poster and replies for the nine-months ”mini moult” heads up! #chickenlove

 

[cherrybombuk]

One of my three 8 month old girls is doing this now. She stopped laying, her comb and wattles shrank and got paler. Then one day I noticed her head had shrunk. No, not really. But she had lost the poofy feathers on her neck and had pin feather shafts showing, so it looked like her neck and head were smaller. She also lost the "flag" part of her tail. She'll just be all the prettier when she's back to normal and laying eggs... soon, I hope. I'm getting about 4 eggs per week out of the three of them.

Don't know if it surprised you, @Sally PB It was startling when this happened (because I didn't know about the mini-moult). Poor little thing, your hen sounds temporarily pitiful. Hopefully, she’ll be floofy and full feathered soon (and laying eggs like gangbusters). Good luck!

 

[schan]

So glad I found this because out of my 10 girls I have two of them that are losing feathers at the back end and it looks like pins. I was worried something was wrong. The other ones are one and not doing this. They all eat the same thing. What is a good protien to give them?

 

[yakitori]

Middle of November, poor 9 month old girl. Im giving her access to the cat food for some extra protein

I noticed her looking a little frazzled and extra jumpy last week and thought the other girls must have been picking on her, odd because she should be in the top half of the pecking order. then one day her tail feathers were gone and I chased her down to check her over, suspecting mites. I found that she had stealthily shed half her feather in inconspicuous areas and have already grown the pin feathers out. My first ever first year moulter!