Early Moulting

[Urchickchic]

I have a 14 month old barred rock whom I hatched. Her two flockmates are 20 months (one is her mother) and are just finishing up with their first moult. Their moults were gradual over a month. Over the last week, my barred rock has lost about 1/3 of her feathers. Is this normal? I didn't think they moulted until they were older. Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Where are you located. Adults molts are generally done in the fall. Generally any bird over a year will molt, sometimes younger ones will do it too.

 

[Urchickchic]

Maryland

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Sounds normal to me. Some birds drop feathers like crazy while with others it's gradual. Each bird is an individual.

 

[Urchickchic]

Thanks! I thought it might be a bit early and not the best time of year. She's really bedraggled. The others molted in the fall at 18 months and did it gradually.

 

[Urchickchic]

So here is our little girl today. Shes still continuing to lose feathers rapidly and new pin feathers are growing in. Is still very active but I can tell she’s kinda uncomfortable. Doesn’t appear to have been pecked, no wounds etc. the other two did not moult like this. Does this look normal? Anything else I can feed her to help her along? This started two and a half weeks ago and she abruptly stopped laying (as expected).

 

[Wyorp Rock]

So here is our little girl today. Shes still continuing to lose feathers rapidly and new pin feathers are growing in. Is still very active but I can tell she’s kinda uncomfortable. Doesn’t appear to have been pecked, no wounds etc. the other two did not moult like this. Does this look normal? Anything else I can feed her to help her along? This started two and a half weeks ago and she abruptly stopped laying (as expected).

Yes, that looks normal!
She will be uncomfortable for while.
Watch to see that she is eating. Mine seem to do off feed a little when molting. Occasionally I might have one that is so miserable she draws attention to herself and gets picked on too. I will separate her for a couple of hours with her own food/water and a nice treat of eggs So she can rest a bit and relax. Sometimes I give a direct dose of Poultry Vitamins too. Careful when handling a molting bird at that stage, it can be painful to them.

She will be just beautiful when she gets all those feathers back in

 

[Urchickchic]

Thanks for the reassurance! Both other girls were much more gradual. She literally lost 30% of her feathers within a week. Poor girl has no tail feathers at all! She seems to be eating and I am feeding a slightly higher protein pellet than layer feed for the time being (feather fixer)

 

[aart]

Anything else I can feed her to help her along?

Give her some animal protein scrambled egg, meal worms, canned fish.
'Feather Fixer' isn't really a feather fixer...but a marketing ploy.

She looks fine, it'll take some time, better than this:
Only really hard molter I ever had, most look like yours, just scruffy.

 

[Urchickchic]

That is truly a “hard moult”! I will give them all some extra protein. Believe it or not I have an excess of eggs now so I’ll cook some up for them, especially Hawk (my hard moulter). Thank you.