Do chicks lose feathers?

[sovia]

I have a flock of 11-week old chicks. Everything has gone great until this past week when I noticed a lot of feathers around the coop and run areas. I have been feeding Purina Sunfresh (available to them 24/7), all my produce scraps (excluding those that are toxic to them), and cooked egg yolks (my houseguests won't eat them so I feed them to the chicks). Could I be causing some type of deficiency in them by allowing them to have "treats" every day? Is it normal for chicks to lose feathers?

Just to clarify, I am feeding Purina Start & Grow SunFresh!

 

[Matt A NC]

They are just going through another molt. Chicks do this several times as they grow before getting their adult feathers. Some do it a little at a time and sometimes it will look someone poured out a feather pillow.

Matt

 

[JennsPeeps]

I have a 9-week old banty & 3 5-week old medium-sized chicks. I've noticed that the banty loses a lot more feathers than do the others, so just figured that it's normal.

I can't imagine the pile o' feathers we're gonna have at molting time!

 

[sovia]

Okay, I feel a little better now. I started to panic last night when I was reading a chicken book (yes, I am a novice - can you tell?

) and it talked about mites or cannibalism. Yikes! Anyhow, thanks for your replies.