Dirty, dirty hen

[Wyleiria]

I got a variety of girls because, well, I like variety. I got a white leghorn because I wanted a white egg layer and I thought their snowy white feathers are so pretty. This is ghost:

She is filthy! None of the other girls rub under the vehicles, which I am assuming this is from. Why can't she be my snowy princess I wanted???

 

[Wyleiria]

Memory lane when she was clean

 

[azygous]

There is a very small window around the first of the year when almost all chickens in the northern hemisphere look their best with clean, shiny, perfect feathers, free of grime and no broken, tattered feathers to be seen. Mark the calendar for January to go feast your eyes on your perfect flock, because after molt, they will look better than they will all the remainder of the year.

I wish it could last, but it doesn't take long, with a few rare exceptions, for our chickens to all get grimy and tattered-looking again.

We all join together to mourn for those wonderful weeks immediately following molt.

And hope is renewed right at this particular moment, as days begin to get shorter, when we notice signs of the beginning of molt! With breathless anticipation, we endure the embarrassing naked and bristly patches and pick up and sweep out gallons and gallons of feathers, knowing the precious moment of perfection is nigh!