All these feathers!!!

[TylerBareneckChickens]

OMG every time I check on the birds, the feather layer gets deeper and deeper! It looks like a few pillows exploded in the run and coop. They're blowing all over the yard, into the garden, across the driveway.... I even found feathers in the garage! Not to mention how they show up in the laundry, sweeping the floor, in the vacuum cleaner - next I'll be picking them out of dinner plates!

Soon the birds will be naked, or at least look like they've just come from a very BAD hairstylist. About 1/3 of my flock (25 +/-) are going into their first 18-month molt. Another third, their annual fall molt. The rest are chicks, going through juvenile molt. Everybody all at once! I expect to get lots of good molt pictures this year!

How is the molting going in your flock?

 

[TylerBareneckChickens]

My 5 hens are 18 months and only one is molting. Once I took the fake eggs out of the coop, forcing her to stop nesting, she stop molting. She lost less than half of her feathers, none of the main feathers per se, and I do not see any skin showing, well maybe I think there is a little on her butt. Seems like feeding them a little more protein like crickets, meal worms, sardines and ground beef caused her to stop brooding, molting and start laying again.