Arizona Chickens

[Diannastarr]

Whoooo go australorpes!!!! Lol I will cheer lead for that breed any day. My girl is so smart and ready to start laying any day now.

yes indeed they are so very smart, i feel they are the top breed hands down , my blue aussie hen is an amazing bird, sweet & smart, australorps are the best layers , there is no other breed like the Aussies,very good free rangers, calm and they just have it all.

 

[Diannastarr]

Could it have been from all of that cat food that you have been feeding her?

im not sure if a bit of cat food could make such a difference , plus i just toss a hand full of cat food ((the low ash kind i feed my cats )) out to my entire flock every day in late afternoon and its not made any difference like that in any of them ...? most of the other breeds all do look like they were molting, but not my hupp Aussies, so i believe its the blood line they come from, the hupp blood line , chet hupp bred some of the most beautiful amazing Aussies & the 4 i got from Chet hupp 2 hens & 2 roos all had the best temperaments and were very smart and they all never looked like they ever molted at all ...? and those 4 birds out of all my 75 chickens always looked like they were ready to enter any show at any time, they were always picture perfect with out a feather out of place no matter what time of year it was , so thats what i call well bred Aussies, to bad there is not hadrly ant left since chet hupp stopped breeding his beautiful Aussies just about the same time i got my 4 Aussies from him.

 

[FeatherPugs]

Both of mine that are still molting are blue Australorps. My oldest hen Zhanne. My rooster seem's to be loosing the most feathers from it and he was hatched out New Years Day of this year. The other girls are all younger than he is and have their feathers. Some of those haven't even laid the first egg yet.

I also had a this year sex-link molt hard! I've never had a newbie molt before in all my years of chicken keeping. I push the protein but their molt has still been hard and they have been molting it seems forever - since late Sept/early Oct. Its crazy feather clean-up day today too........I've never cleaned so many feathers!

 

[DesertChic]

If you read the old poultry husbandry books written back in the early 1900s, molting patterns were something the farmers documented and culled or bred for. Even within a single breed, some birds just molt long and hard and don't lay a single egg during that time while others continue to lay 1-2 eggs per week through most or all of molt, and then get through the process more quickly.

Molting is definitely something I'm paying more attention to when selecting my breeders now that I'm more aware of how my birds handle a rougher year. My three Australorps and a handful of my NNs handled molt the best. My EEs were the worst, and my Dorkings were pretty hard molters, but also are NOT winter layers. A actually gift my Dorking roosters some other laying girls because they were becoming so frustrated by the Dorking hens.

My worst molters, as in hard, fast and massive feather loss all at one time, get raw lamb at least once per day along with extra veggies, black oil sunflower seeds, and vitamin supplements along with their regular feed to help them get through it. I put them in my isolation pen and treat them until I see them sprout feathers, which usually occurs in about three days, but with so many birds here I can't do that for all of them.

 

[DesertChic]

hi DesertChic,
if you have some nice NN girls you would part with and a nice sweet NN roo, let me know i am interested...! & i always love the jumbo eggs...!!

No girls right now since I need the eggs, but how about this cockerel?

Monroe is my only splash, and he gets hugs multiple times per day. He just loves to be held. He's heterozygous NN/EE cross and is a strong carrier of the blue egg gene.

 

[meetthebubus]

my girls won't eat those feather fixers, it smells horrible too i gave it to the wild rabbits and birds lol i forgot about chick starter until it was too late, but some girls went through the molt super fast while others are taking their time... glad everyone's doing ok though

 

[BlueBaby]

Whoooo go australorpes!!!! Lol I will cheer lead for that breed any day. My girl is so smart and ready to start laying any day now.

Need a couple more of them? Want to make a trip here? I have 2 of the Australorp girls here that should be coming up on POL in a couple more months. One is a Black, and one is a Blue from the same hatch.

 

[BlueBaby]

I also had a this year sex-link molt hard! I've never had a newbie molt before in all my years of chicken keeping. I push the protein but their molt has still been hard and they have been molting it seems forever - since late Sept/early Oct. Its crazy feather clean-up day today too........I've never cleaned so many feathers!

I know what you mean by the feather's everywhere from this molt. In a way, I'm glad that I sold off all but Zhanne of my older birds. All of my other girls were all hatched out later on in this year. Those aren't molting at all.

 

[meetthebubus]

I also had a this year sex-link molt hard! I've never had a newbie molt before in all my years of chicken keeping. I push the protein but their molt has still been hard and they have been molting it seems forever - since late Sept/early Oct. Its crazy feather clean-up day today too........I've never cleaned so many feathers!

Most of my feathers got blown into the chicken wire on the bottom of my fence.. too hard to get out as its entangled

 

[BlueBaby]

Too bad there isn't anyone that I know who has some type of feather hobby that could use all of these feather's.