Do you think this is molting?

[Hopeful homesteader]

I noticed about 2 weeks ago my rooster had lost all his long tail feathers, it wasn't bald and no skin was visible but it was just sudden they were there one day and gone the next and now new ones are about 3-4 inches long. Now again yesterday he had all his neck feathers and today there's a chunk missing from the back of his neck. I haven't had a chance to get a hold of him for a closer look but I got the best pictures possible with hime moving around so much.

This is my flocks first year molting and so far its been so slow I almost didn't notice until I saw some new feathers with a more defined pattern compared to their old feathers. It's as if they are only losing 1 feather at a time and there's hardly any on the ground. They shed more during juvenile molt than they are currently.

 

[Mrs. K]

Really the first time I dealt with a molt, I thought they were dying. Seemed like they were fine one day, and looked like they had been attacked the next. It looks like it has to be something awful.

But they survive. Once I got a rooster looking like this, and I did a strict quarantine, just in case, but 4 weeks later he was the cat's meow!

Yes that is molt, and yes it looks dreadful, and soon it will be over.