Do you clean up molting feathers?

[FarmerGirl101]

A few of them do like eating the feathers which I find weird, but oh well! I figure the rest of the fluff will be dust to dust eventually!

Mine eat them too! I haven't seen them eat them lately but they do eat it

 

[Pghelp]

Mine eat them too! I haven't seen them eat them lately but they do eat it

Yes! Especially the little fluffy ones. I was so dumb the first time it happened I tried to help them and take it out of their mouth. Nope, they just gobbled it down faster. Chickens are strange!

 

[rosemarythyme]

I mostly leave them alone, both in coop and run. If there's a big clump somewhere I might sweep them up for the compost pile. By the time spring rolls around they're all gone, one way or another.

 

[aart]

Nah, tho this year there seems to be more on the coop floor.
Sometimes there are a bunch that get scooped up off the poop boards

 

[Folly's place]

I leave them where they are, no problem.
Mary

 

[CluckerFamily]

I do a deep litter method in the coop for the winter. Leaving the feathers from molting in the coop helps shovel out the coop in the spring.

 

[Onyxflock]

Too many feathers.... #1 Weedblower!
But I wonder should I supplement them during molt? Someone mentioned extra protein...

 

[Folly's place]

Ours eat 20% protein Flock Raiser all year, and tend to have less 'ugly' molts than birds on 16% layer feed. We don't add anything extra during molt, and our multigenerational flock doesn't all molt at once anyway.
Mary

 

[Onyxflock]

Ours eat 20% protein Flock Raiser all year, and tend to have less 'ugly' molts than birds on 16% layer feed. We don't add anything extra during molt, and our multigenerational flock doesn't all molt at once anyway.
Mary

That's good info. Thanks. I'm surprised that the Brahmas are molting at just 1 year old in Sept. I've read that they mature slowly, but hoping its not something else. My young Wyandottes seem to shed feathers more than the others regularly, but 21 weeks old pretty sure they're not molting yet.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I leave them. But I have no visible neighbors, and more space than most.