Chicken molting

[JaneJohnReed]

Our chickens are 17 months old. We haven't seen any signs of molting. When should we expect them to lose their feathers and quit laying? They are Gold Stars. We live in Central Iowa.

 

[centrarchid]

The first thing to look for is wing flight feathers showing up on ground. If birds in good nutrition, then egg production should continue, especially with something like Goldstars with reputations for egg productivity. At some point hens will begin replacing body feathers and tail feathers which be physically more demanding than simply flight feathers on wings. That is the point egg production usually waivers even when birds are in good nutrition. Breeds I have started dropping flight feathers back in May, at least with roosters. My hens are just now starting to loose theirs, especially those that have been broody. Some of the egg production breeds delay start of wing feather replacement but once they start it is much faster and completes about same time as my birds completion. With my birds the egg production does not resume until days start getting longer again although with egg production breeds.it can resume about time last feathers are fully mature.

 

[JaneJohnReed]

Thank you for your reply.

I forgot to mention that we did go through a short period where the three hens pretty well stopped laying. This happened about a month or so ago. We got at most one egg per day and several days with none. We haven't noticed any feathers (more than normal) laying around at any time. If they have molted, this certainly isn't what we expected. But, it's hard to get a handle on it just by reading.

 

[centrarchid]

Thank you for your reply.

I forgot to mention that we did go through a short period where the three hens pretty well stopped laying. This happened about a month or so ago. We got at most one egg per day and several days with none. We haven't noticed any feathers (more than normal) laying around at any time. If they have molted, this certainly isn't what we expected. But, it's hard to get a handle on it just by reading.

I will try to make photographs of hens in molt. Somewhere I posted of a gamerooster molt cycle but that is not applicable to hens since hens are not as obvious normally.

Ideally your birds would not go through the naked phase, my free-range birds do not.