Hello chicken people,
Last night I noticed that my dear australorp Harriet is losing feathers behind her ears. The feather loss is symmetrical on both sides of her head. My first thought was that she was molting, but my initial research leads me to believe that something else is going on because 1) it's May (from what I read, chickens don't molt in the springtime) and 2) her egg production hasn't slowed down (I hear this happens concurrently to molting). Plus, none of our other four chickens are experiencing feather loss, including another australorp. Besides the missing feathers, Harriet is doing fine. She's eating, drinking, as active as ever, and like I mentioned before, still laying.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what's going on? Maybe she's just confused about the time of year and she actually is molting? In case it makes a difference, she's about a year old.
Last night I noticed that my dear australorp Harriet is losing feathers behind her ears. The feather loss is symmetrical on both sides of her head. My first thought was that she was molting, but my initial research leads me to believe that something else is going on because 1) it's May (from what I read, chickens don't molt in the springtime) and 2) her egg production hasn't slowed down (I hear this happens concurrently to molting). Plus, none of our other four chickens are experiencing feather loss, including another australorp. Besides the missing feathers, Harriet is doing fine. She's eating, drinking, as active as ever, and like I mentioned before, still laying.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what's going on? Maybe she's just confused about the time of year and she actually is molting? In case it makes a difference, she's about a year old.
